


Assassin Battlemage Soldier Spy

by bideru



Series: Stormwind Secret Archives [3]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Extremely Unreliable Narrator, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Tentacle References, all kneel before void, bisexual umbric, cupcake boi anduin, descriptions of violence, ginger tea is a nausea cure all, guys most of your problems would abate if you just talked it out, how to plot an assassination when your girlfriend works for your target, i suppose i have to tag food/eating issues now since i can't stop talking about food, let's talk about what happened in silvermoon, the ren'dorei are one huge found family, the void causes horrible nightmares and other side effects, the void makes you paranoid and anxious and angry, there are 32 named velfs ingame and i'm using them all, trouble in nazjatar, umbric has some feelings about how the alliance treats him, umbric is pants at relationships, umbric's hateboner for rommath, umbric's rise to power is so sus, winter veil is the season for consumerism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 71,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: The Alliance was supposed to protect them but in the war against the Horde, they seem more interested in using the ren'dorei as shock value cannon fodder, and Umbric is quickly reaching his breaking point. All he'd wanted was to protect the Sunwell and now here he was, banished from his homeland and serving a faction who's more interested in using him to further their own machinations. Valeera wasn't supposed to mean anything, until she did.
Relationships: Valeera Sanguinar/Umbric, one-sided Umbric/Rommath
Series: Stormwind Secret Archives [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984304
Comments: 66
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic references events in [Eat Pray Stab](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184129/chapters/66397048) as well as several events in [Enough: Short Story Long](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298159/chapters/58571620), but you don't need to read those to understand.
> 
> Note: In this canon, the group that became the void elves were banished after Kael'thas declared them blood elves, but before Silvermoon aligned themselves with the Horde, and were factionless when they joined the Alliance.

One hundred and fifty-two. They’d first met Alleria Windrunner with a force of one hundred and fifty-two.

He’d left Silvermoon with more than that. Not much more, but more. Because of his carelessness, his inability to reign in the Void’s incredible powers, he’d lost friends, people disillusioned with Silvermoon and its _illustrious_ Grand Magister. People who had willingly followed him and conspired with him. People who’d given up their old lives and everyone in them for him. He couldn’t get them back. 

Silvermoon had been their home, and for the crime of knowledge, for seeking to find a way to safeguard and empower their city and people in the face of the Sunwell’s collapse, they’d been thrown out. Cast aside. Exiled. Grand Magister Rommath had stood there, face contorted in fury, _not understanding_ the power he was being handed, and ordered their banishment, and _Regent Lord Theron had let him._

Ohhh, Rommath. He’d deal with that man. One way or another, he’d make him eat his words. 

And wasn’t that why he’d pledged them to the Alliance? To prove to people like Rommath that he’d been _right,_ that the Void was not some terrifying, unknowable entity but a force that could be contained and used for the advancement of their race? Alleria Windrunner had seen value in their potential, and despite all the atrocities the Alliance had committed against the quel’dorei, he’d been so confident, so sure of his decision to go with her. To bring his one hundred and fifty-two newly-christened void elves into the blue. 

The Alliance was supposed to _protect_ them. What a fucking joke. Instead, people like Halford Wyrmbane and Mathias fucking Shaw had dipped into their precious, unrenewable resources, had sent ren’dorei after ren’dorei into the fray to die. He knew them all.

Vazun Starspeaker, buried on some nameless island in the South Seas. 

Savia Anguossa and Mastus Snowspray, slaughtered by Horde forces in the Arathi Highlands. Celosel Nightgiver, in critical condition.

Selina Duskraven, killed in the attack on Fort Victory, in Sunwellforsaken Nazmir. 

And more. Crystalynn and Kelain and Falania Nightsoul ﹣ people he’d known for decades and his entire life. Mendaci, his personal guard since Silvermoon, where he’d protected them from mobs of manahungry Wretched. Loranis, who’d established the Riftrunners, and the best friend he’d ever had. 

He watched the desolation of his people with despair in his heart. The Alliance didn’t understand ﹣ hadn’t he told them that the ren’dorei were a _finite_ resource? Did they not understand basic Common? 

_Send a squadron of your most powerful fighters to the Arathi Basin,_ Greymane ordered.

 _Give me a team of your most capable, most discreet men and women for SI:7 training,_ commanded the spymaster.

 _How many battlemages would you give us for the fight in Nazmir?_ Wyrmbane asked. _Fifty? Sixty?_

As if they had fifty or sixty to spare. 

And now this, on the eve of the invasion of Dazar’alor. _Pack up your camp,_ came the order. _Send word to your teams in Zuldazar. You will serve in the infantry in Nazmir, and then flank the Lady Jaina into the city._

The fucking infantry. There were twenty of them stationed in outposts around Zuldazar, and maybe six in Nazmir. Twenty-six ren’dorei against the forces of blood trolls and angry Zandalari and all the Horde. How many more deaths would he see today?

“Fuck this,” he muttered. “Fuck Dazar’alor and the Alliance. Let it all burn.” 

He was so _tired._

There came a smack, more out of shock than genuine anger, and he felt himself almost shoved from the bedroll. Beside him, beneath golden hair tousled from sleep, Valeera Sanguinair’s emerald eyes glared at him sharply in the dark morning light. 

“I work for the _High King,_ idiot. You can’t say things like that.”

Fuck the High King. He’d heard tales of the boy king, of his kindness and compassion. Rumors that he was nothing like his father, that he saw value in the common lives of every soldier and peasant. At the rate in which they were sent to die, he knew the rumors were lies. At least Kael'thas had given them a choice. 

“I’ll say whatever I want about the man who uses us as cannon fodder,” he grumbled, but he didn’t think Valeera heard him. Louder, he said, “I’m up. Fine, I’m getting up.”

He dressed slowly. Outside the tent was a flurry of activity, shouting and grousing and the clinking of eating on the go. All of their sensitive instruments were being carefully put away, the most secret information ﹣ the things even the Alliance couldn’t know ﹣ being burned. He had his own tent to pack up, his people to address. He couldn’t stay here with Valeera, no matter how he wanted to.

And oh, he wanted to. Valeera Sanguinar had not been a part of his meticulously crafted machinations, had never factored into his designs on the Alliance, his revenge against Rommath, the hatred brewing beneath his skin, and yet she had happened anyway. She’d gone from a base desire, a need to fuck a nameless and attractive woman, to someone he looked forward to having in his bed, to someone whose quiet footsteps he anticipated, someone whose company he enjoyed. 

Someone he cared for. 

Sighing, he sat up and began reaching for his discarded clothing. Smallclothes, socks ﹣ he ran out of socks so quickly, he’d learned, on a warfront ﹣ trousers. Fine violet silk robes, near invisible in the darkness of the tent save for their gold trim. Sturdy leather boots, uncomfortably mismatched with his usual attire but unfortunately necessary in the Zuldazar jungle. 

“You coming?” He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. She was so terribly, devastatingly beautiful in the soft light of the coming dawn, and he was terrified that he would walk into battle and not come back, would never see her again. 

Her answer was loud to his ears against the din of the camp, the quietness of the tent. “Have to wait for Shaw.” And his heart dropped into his stomach. 

_Shaw._ His superior, and the man who’d ordered all those deaths. The spymaster had come to represent the Alliance as a whole, in his eyes, and the knowledge that Valeera would stand with Shaw ﹣ with the Alliance ﹣ and not him made all the breath leave him. 

_It was never supposed to be like this,_ he chastised himself. _You weren’t supposed to get involved. She was only supposed to be a fuck._

“Right,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. What did he expect? 

_This is Ms Sanguinar, an agent of His Majesty King Anduin,_ Shaw had said. _She will be carrying out assignments at His Majesty’s request._ Even Shaw had told him, plain as day all those months ago, who Valeera belonged to, and it wasn’t him. Would never be him, no matter how many nights she shared his bed, how many kisses passed between them. No matter how many times he woke in the middle of the night to her warm, sleepy body in his arms. 

He straightened his spine. Threw back his shoulders. _You knew this would happen,_ he scolded himself, _and you did it anyway. Your pain is your own fault._

“Right,” he said again, louder. And then he stood abruptly, his dark hair brushing the ceiling, feeling Valeera’s eyes boring into him. As much as he wanted to grab her and leave, as badly as he wanted to put this whole dirty Alliance business behind him, he couldn’t. The ren’dorei ﹣ his people ﹣ needed him. He would not let them down again.

Umbric left the tent, and he did not look back.

* * *

The last thing he remembered was pain. 

A blow to the head. The foul taste of seawater. He couldn’t open the portal in time, his fingers searching for tears in the fabric of reality that weren’t there. 

He didn’t know what happened. He heard talking, somewhere above him. _Lady Jaina_ and _tidal wave_ and _survivors._ Was he one of those? Or had he finally, blissfully died, succumbed to the Void as Rommath had sworn would happen all those years ago?

 _Rommath._ The last time he’d seen the man had been in Lordaeron, and _oh,_ it had been glorious. The Grand Magister’s face had flickered between shock and fury and delicious, insane determination. Everything had fallen away ﹣ the dying troops, Sylvanas, even his own ren’dorei ﹣ as they faced each other, flame crackling at the Grand Magister’s feet, brimming in his hands and along his bare, tattooed arms. 

_What’s the matter, Grand Magister?_ he’d taunted. _Surprised to see me?_

 _UMBRIC!_ The rage emanating from the magister was palpable, shooting powerful thrills of excited, frenzied arousal up his spine. He wanted to possess the man, to seize him against all social convention by his sleek black hair and _show_ him the power of the Void, _prove_ to him he’d been wrong. If the orc Saurfang could be captured as prisoner of war, why not the esteemed Grand Magister? Umbric wouldn’t hurt him ﹣ not at first.

Tentacles erupted in the space between them, thick and powerful and _reaching_ ﹣

“Shit﹣!”

“﹣get him under﹣!”

“﹣someone restrain﹣!”

And then his mind went regretfully, blissfully blank.

  
  
  


The next time he surfaced he couldn’t breathe. Every attempt to fill his ravaged, aching lungs was like trying to breathe water, and with a vague spark of surprise he realized that the rumbling, whistling noise he heard was coming from his own lips.

“﹣gister? Magister Umbric, can you hear me?”

Someone was talking to him. He didn’t recognize the voice. It probably didn’t matter.

“Ngh,” he said, and that wasn't a word at all.

“You’re safe, Magister Umbric. You swallowed a lot of water, and fractured﹣”

Oh. Well that explained why it hurt to breathe.

“﹣onboard _the Assurance,_ sir, on the way back to Bor﹣”

Whatever _the Assurance_ was. Was that a ship? Was that why it felt as though he were rolling?

His stomach churned then, and suddenly he was being shoved rapidly onto his side, heaving violently over the side of… wherever he was. 

“Get it all out,” the voice soothed. “We tried to pull as much water as we could﹣”

He couldn’t hear the voice anymore over the sound of his own retching. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a tendril of shame emerged at his sorry state of being. 

It felt like hours before he regained control of himself, before the roiling in his belly calmed. Someone was cleaning his face with a warm, damp cloth. 

“﹣be there soon ﹣ try to sleep﹣”

He passed out again. 

  
  
  


At some point they did indeed make it back to Boralus. He was _freezing,_ and the pile of blankets the healers had given him weren't helping. All they were was a weight, pressing on his already constricted and pained chest, but he had not the strength to push them off, and when the tidesages removed them to examine him, he shivered so violently he could feel the rattling of his bones. 

“You’re awake,” said the tidesage. She seemed neither surprised nor disappointed, and he supposed that was fair. Whatever these people thought of him, another death was still a tragedy, and something to be avoided. “Don’t ﹣ don’t try and sit up.” 

A gentle hand was placed on his shoulder, forcing him back to the bed. But laying down hurt, and his wheezy breathing grew more desperate until he was shooting up, hacking great globs of green-tinged phlegm into a washcloth hastily shoved into his shaking hand. 

“I’ll get Sister Yvia,” the tidesage was saying. She placed a glass and pitcher by his bedside and hurried from the room. No, not a room. They’d strung a curtain around his bed, and the girl had left through that. 

He fell back to his pillows with a gasp, and had not the strength to either reach for the water or pull up the covers he’d knocked askew. Shudders wracked his body until the curtain parted again, and the tidesage was back with another woman who he assumed was this Sister Yvia. 

“Magister Umbric,” she said, covering him with the blankets, “my name is Yvia. Do you know where you are?”

“B-B-Boralus.” It was difficult to talk through the chattering of teeth. 

The tidesage nodded. “You’re back in Boralus,” she confirmed, “in recovery. You drowned, and now you’re suffering from pneumonia.” 

He wanted to laugh. His entire life was suffering at this point. What was a little pneumonia on top of things?

“H-h-how…” He wanted to scream. The strength it took to form even a single word was maddening.

“There were tidesages in Lady Jaina’s forces,” Yvia explained, carefully extracting one of his arms from the mountain of blankets. It was bandaged, and it stung as she removed the wrapping. “Drowning isn’t fatal, if the water is removed in time.”

Umbric shook his head, wincing at the feeling of his brain bashing around his skull. That had been a bad move. “N-no,” he grit out, watching without really seeing as the tidesage examined the terrible wound. “H-how m-m-many…” The words grew thicker with each attempt, until he was coughing again, unable to speak for the fluid in his lungs.

Sister Yvia was patient, dressing the area with some sort of runny salve. It burned at first before fading to a dull warmth that soothed his icy skin. 

“How m-m-many ren… r-ren’d-dorei…”

And, Light bless the woman, he didn’t have to say more. “I’m not sure,” the tidesage said. 

“There’s two void elves downstairs, sir,” piped the younger one, somewhere out of his field of vision. “They’re in a right state.”

Sister Yvia was mixing some sort of sweet-smelling herb into a glass of water, helping him sit up enough to drink. His throat was so dry. “I’ll try and find out,” she promised, “but you should really be more concerned with yourself right now. You’re very ill.”

He laughed, and it came out sounding more like an angry grunt. He’d lived through the blighting of Lordaeron and scrounging rotting mushrooms in the Ghostlands. The Void would not let him die from some water and a little fever. 

  
  
  


Umbric floated in and out of sleep, some of it induced and unnatural. He saw Silvermoon, bathed in the black-violet energies of the Void, and Rommath submitting to him under the heel of his gold-trimmed boot. He saw Loranis and Faedra and Crystalynn, huddled together around the decrepit, unsettling journal of High Astromancer Solarian, saw his parents’ faces as they were before they’d been taken by the Scourge. He saw Valeera on the ship to Zandalar, half listening as he spoke of void crystals and Telogrus Rift, and saw her as she had been that afternoon in the jungle, silk robes of red and gold hugging her slim figure and her long hair piled gracefully atop her head. He watched as she used one finger to dab scarlet paint upon her lips, the whispers murmuring how good those lips would look wrapped around his cock. Saw her beneath him as she’d been hundreds of times, panting and bruised from his deft fingers, heard as clearly as if she were beside him the gasps and hums as she writhed from the pleasure only he could give her.

He dreamt of Valeera quite a lot, and his heart ached for it.

The nightmares to which he was prone were kept blissfully at bay with little vials of dreamless sleep potion after he’d woken one night screaming, tentacles erupting from his body and giving the healer the scare of her life. The whispers of the Void calmed under the drug but were still there, just beneath the surface. They fed him visions of Mathias Shaw, dead by his hand, and little King Anduin broken and bleeding on the steps of his golden throne. Halford Wyrmbane and steady General Feathermoon, strangled and struggling before disappearing beneath the waves of a vicious sea. He saw his ren’dorei, eyes aglow and unleashing slithering tendrils, reclaiming what they had lost amongst the rubble of Stormwind and the fires of Silvermoon. The Sunwell, infused with Void energies, sacred and incorruptible as it was always meant to be…

Umbric woke coughing, the air trickling thinly into his battered lungs. He hacked, trying to dislodge the fluid that had built during sleep, and his vision cleared from the black of unconsciousness to the watery haze of the recovery room’s light. He blinked several times, eyes streaming, and fought against his mountain of blankets. 

It took several moments before he could breathe again. 

He laid back against his pillows, wheezing, trying to calm his racing heart. The tidesages had said the pneumonia had to run its course, that they couldn’t pull the phlegm from his lungs. _Some things just have to heal on their own time, Magister Umbric,_ they’d told him. What a crock of hawkstrider shit. 

And then he saw a flash of dark crimson, just in the edge of his vision, and what breath he had left immediately caught in his throat. It was just a tidesage, he told himself, or Halford Wyrmbane. Perhaps even Elestrae Dawnshard, one of his subordinates who’d survived and worried for him and the other ren’dorei. She checked on him sometimes, being a little versed in the healing arts, brought him calming tea and warm blankets.

But when he turned his head, he didn’t see Elestrae. Didn’t see pale blue skin or silver-blue eyes. He saw blonde hair, a tall trembling figure standing tentatively near the flap of his privacy curtain, stark against the dark cloth. _Valeera._

_She came back._

He’d left her that morning, however long ago, certain he would never see her again. Convinced that if she didn’t die in Dazar’alor, her love of the Alliance and her precious King Anduin would keep her from him after what he’d said, convinced that she’d report him to Shaw now that she’d finally gotten a glimpse into his angry black heart. 

_But here she was._

She worried one of her full pink lips between her teeth, her green eyes wide. One arm she’d wrapped around herself, anxious as he’d never seen her before. For him? Why? He’d as good as announced his treasonous thoughts the morning of battle. He’d never expected to see her again. 

He coughed weakly, mustering all his effort in one word and praying he didn’t make a fool of himself. “Hi.” 

And like a dam breaking, she responded. The tenseness bled from her body and she dove for him, with none of her usual stealth and grace. Had she been worried for him? 

“Hi,” she whispered breathlessly, relief bleeding into the word. Umbric saw out of the corner of his eye her hand come up, hesitantly, reaching for him as she hadn’t that morning, as he’d desperately wanted her to. A hiccup of a laugh escaped from her then, and he felt, over his many blankets, the weight of her hand in the vicinity of his. 

“Hi,” she breathed again. And Umbric knew Valeera wasn’t the type to express open affection. Knew even though she’d raked her hands through his short hair, as she allowed him to twist her own between lithe fingers, that it was merely a gesture of passion, of raw lust, of carnal desire. Despite what they did at night in his bed, she hadn’t meant any of it, hadn’t begun to _feel_ anything like he had. The whispers told him as much. 

But maybe. With her hand over his and her breathy _Hi,_ with the concern in her eyes and the fact that _she came back for him…_

Maybe the whispers were wrong. Maybe there was something there after all.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maintain that High Astromancer Solarian was Umbric's first foray into the Void. She _turns into a voidwalker_ during her fight, come on now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric goes for a walk to clear his head, and finds Valeera.

Umbric had seen his first century ﹣ a short amount of time to be alive, for an elf ﹣ but as he stood there, in Mathias Shaw’s tiny office aboard _the Wind’s Redemption,_ he felt aged and broken, the weight of elven souls bearing down on him like King Anasterian, before Arthas Menethil had run him through. He felt three thousand years old. 

The spymaster had not visited him in his sickbed, which was both a relief and infuriating. While Umbric had not wanted the man to see him struggle for breath, weak and scarcely able to sit up on his own, in his gut he wished he had. Just once. Hadn’t he sat with any number of his own ren’dorei, bandaged and bloodied and torn apart? Hadn’t he prayed ﹣ to the Sunwell, the Light, the Void ﹣ that he would reach them in time, that if they had to die at least they wouldn’t do so alone? A half dozen of his elves had been caught in Jaina’s tidal wave, and Umbric knew them all. Rauvir, Aowyn, Zarra, Atynar, Grady, and Shade. Three of them had died, caught up in the rushing waters and sitting ducks for Zandalari archers. 

_He doesn’t care,_ the whispers told him. _Whether you live or die, he doesn’t care._

“You’ll return to Zandalar, of course,” Shaw was saying. “You indicated in your last report you wished for more time, something about a…” And here the spymaster squinted at his own writing. “Dark Chronicler?”

More research, safe from the war. From the front lines and goblin snipers and lumbering orcs with their heavy battleaxes.

“Yes.” Umbric couldn’t say more. His jaw was clenched too tight.

 _It would be so easy,_ said the whispers, _to snap his neck right here. No one would ever know. There are no guards at the door. What are you waiting for?_

He tried to tamp the thoughts down. Even with the power of the Void, Umbric didn’t think he could take on the spymaster of the Alliance. Not as he was now, and maybe not even when he was recovered.

_You could do it. What’s one dagger against a thousand tentacles?_

He eyed the weapons, just barely visible beneath the edge of the desk. The pommels were carved into the shape of lions' heads.

“Good, good.” Shaw fixed him with a steely green eye, as though he’d heard all of Umbric’s horrible innermost thoughts, and for a moment the magister was taken aback at how the exact same shade could look so warm, so inviting on Valeera’s face, and so frigid and distant on another’s. “The same assignment then, and I’m entrusting you to continue delivering Ms Sanguinar’s reports.”

Valeera had left Boralus six weeks ago, and though he’d told her to, Umbric’s heart ached. He didn’t want her to see him, broken and wheezing and confined to his sickbed. He didn’t want her to think this was all he was now. He’d barely been able to speak, the last time he’d seen her, and the whispers told him she’d never accept him like that. 

But the elation at the reunion blossomed only briefly before curling in itself and dying, tearing its bleeding roots from his fragile insides at Shaw’s next words. 

“Your Voidsmith Aowyn has been heading the camp in your absence, and I’ve reassigned her there for the time being.”

Because Zarra was dead, and Aowyn was her replacement. They’d lost twenty-nine in the battle of Dazar’alor and the feint in Nazmir. Twenty-nine. It wasn’t a large number ﹣ the Dark Irons, for instance, had lost hundreds. But the ren’dorei didn’t have hundreds. There were only one hundred and seventeen of them left now, one for each year of Umbric’s life. 

He’d gladly give them all his years, if it could keep the rest of them alive. 

* * *

Umbric had always liked Aowyn. She was precise and quick in her words and her work, and upon her father’s death had taken up the family business of smithing. She made a great deal of their more sensitive equipment, shaping the spindly wires with dexterity and skill. Her family had made astrolabes and other delicate magical instruments, back in Silvermoon, and after their banishment, her father’s knowledge of metallurgy and magical bonding had served them well. They had no forge here in the camp, but the Dark Iron encampment was just down the beach, and Frida Ironbellows never complained about letting them use theirs. 

“There are still goblins,” Aowyn was saying, picking at a bit of snapper. “They trickle back in greater numbers every day.”

“It’s because of the azerite.” Umbric took a sip of water, cleared his throat. He felt better than he had in Boralus, but the humid air of Zuldazar made his chest tight once more. “They won’t leave until they steal every last drop.”

“Mm.” The voidsmith nodded, popping a bit of fish in her mouth. Umbric’s stomach churned ﹣ he should have requested something else. He’d always liked fish, but… it didn’t sit right in his stomach, after taking in the Void. Not usually. “Ironbellows has a sentry team on the cliff above them. They haven’t even noticed.”

It came without warning, the coughing. It had mostly subsided, but the mugginess here exacerbated it. He hadn’t hacked this much in weeks.

“Here. Drink this.” Aowyn was shoving the water glass back in his hand, and after a moment the mucus in his chest settled and he was able to drink it. To push it back for a little while.

When he looked up, eyes watering, the voidsmith was making a sympathetic face. 

“What I wouldn’t give for stale Ghostlands air,” Umbric muttered.

Aowyn grinned. “The mold might be better for you than the heat,” she offered. “We could send you back.”

“I do miss picking bits of decay out of my food.” The Ghostlands had been a wasteland when they’d been banished, no one area free from the Scourge. They’d cleared out Dawnspire Spire after a while, losing some fifteen men and women to the undead and another two dozen to hunger. The southlands had always been tainted, it had been said, the foul Amani magicks infused in the earth rendering it inhospitable for crops or edible vegetation. Umbric was a northern boy born and bred, and in that awful dreary place, watching his elves try and fail to coax even the most sickly plant to bloom, he believed it. He didn’t know how the southlands had managed before the Scourge, how they’d supported towns and even the trader city Morningstar, nestled among the great roots of the world tree Thas’alah. Perhaps it was the world tree that had nourished them, just enough to eke out the tiniest, most meagre living. 

But Morningstar fell, along with the tree. Dar’Khan Drathir burned it, and from the ashes rose the terrible fortress of Deatholme. Its necromancy had tainted the holy energies of the tree, and Umbric had not been sorry to see it go. Had gladly volunteered, despite his suspension from the Magisters’ Sanctum, to journey into the heart of Scourge territory and burn the ziggurat down. 

Rommath had reinstated him, for his work in Deatholme. 

Umbric would never forgive Drathir for the burning of the great tree, but he was indebted to the man. The Grand Magister had burned his research when he’d cast Umbric out the first time, and though some people ﹣ like Nicanor and Shani Ward ﹣ had managed to make secret copies, could recall certain pages of Solarian’s journal by memory, it had been a dismal time. Their work, all they’d done in the name of empowering the elfgates ﹣ gone. The setback was immense and morale was low. But Drathir… Oh, Drathir. 

He didn’t think the Grand Magister would have allowed him to go, had he known. Dar’Khan Drathir, it turned out, had been enamored with the Void, and it was his notes that allowed Umbric to begin his research anew, aided by his reestablishment in the Sanctum. Their exile shortly after had not been quite the curse Rommath had intended it to be, because the undead did not congregate within Dawnspire Spire, the old, ancestral home of Drathir, and soon enough Umbric learned why. The Void tainted the area, the energy unstable and dangerous to even the powerful necromancies of the Scourge, and it was there that Umbric had been _vindicated,_ had learned that _yes,_ the Void _could_ be weaponized for the good of Quel’Thalas. He’d grinned as he parsed through Drathir’s old writings, almost giddy, unable to keep his thoughts from flitting through scenarios that would ultimately never come to pass. 

Storming back into Silvermoon, the Void rippling off his body brighter than any flame. Standing before the Grand Magister, whose eyes would go wide in awe, who would admit that Umbric had been right, and he’d been foolish to banish him. Or maybe he’d be angry ﹣ oh, Umbric hoped he’d be angry. Hoped to see the fire rise in the Grand Magister’s eyes, to feel the heat against his skin, smell the scorch marks on the fine scarlet carpet. It would make it that much sweeter when Umbric dominated him, when he seized Rommath by his slender neck and watched as the Void smothered all his flames. It would be so much more victorious to divest him of all his gold-trimmed robes and pompous cowl, to desecrate the office of the Grand Magister with Rommath’s eyes burning hatred, unable to look away with as Umbric’s fingers bruised into his perfect face, forcing his furious mouth open and﹣

The flap of his tent fluttered, and the vision lifted. Following the line of his eyes Aowyn turned and, tucking the little gnomish disc into a hidden pocket at her waist, in stepped Valeera. 

The fog cleared from his mind. He wasn’t in the Ghostlands anymore, or Silvermoon. There was no Rommath submitting before him. Only Aowyn, and Valeera.

“Voidsmith, please take Ms Sanguinar’s report to Spymaster Shaw.” The words left a bitter, acrid taste in his mouth. He swallowed around it. “Consider it your last act as head of this operation.” Reaching for his glass, he found it empty, and refilled it from the pitcher across the table. He conjured a new glass for Valeera too, and placed it on his other side. She’d come for Spymaster Shaw, but she would stay for him. 

Valeera scribbled a note and sealed it, removing from her boot an old double edged blade to press into the cooling wax. Umbric had seen this dagger many times before. The hilt was made of bone, strips of leather wrapped around it for grip. There was no cross bar, and on the pommel, what she’d pushed into the wax, was an ornate etching of orcish origin. She’d never let him examine it in any detail, and always kept it within arm’s reach. Aowyn nodded to her, as both her subordinate and Umbric’s, and then she was gone, ripping reality’s tear so quickly even Umbric hardly felt it. She wouldn’t be back for the rest of the day, would be at the Dark Iron camp until nightfall working at the forge.

At his side, Valeera was helping herself to the untouched bread, cutting herself a thick slice and smearing it with soft goat cheese, unbothered by Aowyn’s departure. She ate as if they hadn’t been separated for six weeks, as if the last time they’d seen each other he hadn’t been gasping for breath and half dead. She ate as if they had all the time in the world. 

_Light and Void,_ he’d missed this ridiculous woman. 

Bread was easier to stomach than fish, even with the wildberries baked right in. The cheese helped smother the sweetness of them, and for a while they sat, with their bread and cheese, not touching but close enough. 

“You look better,” she said finally, nodding in his direction.

“I feel better.”

Her lips quirked. “Sound it too.” 

“Oh, that won’t last.” He could feel his chest constrict, the fluid building again in his lungs. It was like the whole of Zandalar was trying to cram itself down his airway.

As if on cue he started to cough, but the Void was merciful and the attack was short.

“I’ve decided drowning is not for me,” he quipped, after a blessed few gulps of cold mineral water. 

Valeera wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb. “You could have been stabbed,” she offered.

The thought of it ﹣ of a blade slipping between her ribs or jutting out her back ﹣ made his blood run cold. “You got stabbed?”

“Happens a lot in my line of work.” 

He noticed she didn’t actually answer the question and his eyes raked over her, flitting over the bits of exposed skin. She _looked_ to be in one piece, no patches of too smooth skin from priest healing, no stitches or healing wounds. 

It occurred to him then that she might have just been toying with him, and not hurt at all. The thought made him smile. 

“I missed you.” 

The words came so suddenly he almost didn’t hear them, despite all his senses trained in her direction. He watched her lips move, saw the formation of the quiet syllables, and only registered after a moment the sounds they had made. 

_She missed him._ She had missed him!

He’d spent the last six weeks in a haze, wondering if their brief encounter in recovery had even happened. Surely she’d reported him, for his words the morning of the Dazar’alor invasion. Surely he’d imagined seeing her there in Boralus, her soft exhaled _Hi_. The whispers told him as much. 

_But she missed him._ It had really happened, she’d been there, and she’d thought of him at least once between then and now. 

Umbric leaned forward on instinct, his lips making contact with her warm forehead. “I missed you too,” he murmured, before he lost his nerve. 

And then her mouth was on his, hot and and hurried, all of her earlier lackadaisical calmness vanished in the swipe of her tongue against the seam of his mouth, in the nibble of teeth along his lower lip. She kissed him until he couldn’t breathe, until the lingering pneumonia roared in his chest and she shoved him back, panting. 

“If you die…” she warned. 

“That’s on me.” He caught his breath, grinned. Watched as her eyes followed the movement of his tongue darting over his lips. 

“Yes.”

He reached for her, grabbing a fistful of crimson robes and golden hair and pulled her to him. Licked into her mouth and hauled her bodily into his lap. Her legs went around him willingly and she felt so _good_ in his arms again, all silken hair and flushed skin and shiny, bruised lips. 

“So happy you’re back,” Valeera murmured into his ear, tongue peeking out to lick up the shell, and Umbric keened. 

“Missed this…” He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do with his hands, where he wanted to touch first. Her skirt hiked up ﹣ he wasn’t sure who did it ﹣ and the heat of her thighs was something he could feel even through the fabric of his robes. He ran his hands along the line of her legs, squeezing the curve of her ass hard enough to bruise. “Missed you…”

He wanted to claim her in this moment, the first hour of the first day he saw her again, and every day after that. Valeera Sanguinar was not his, but in this moment she belonged to no one else. 

* * *

Greymane had issued an order. They were invading Nazjatar ﹣ just how thinly was the Alliance planning on spreading? ﹣ and every able-bodied soldier was expected to go. Umbric fought hard ﹣ he would _not_ send them two dozen ren’dorei, as had been proposed. The request that wasn’t a request he ignored, and in the end he’d sent them _one._ Not one dozen. Just one. Haalie Millionia was a powerful shadowmage, well versed in Old Darnassian and a brilliant cartographer, and most importantly, had volunteered. _I’ll go,_ she said in the face of Umbric’s anger. _We have to send someone. Let it be me._

Umbric didn’t care what King Greymane made of it. His people were _tired,_ and the order came on the heels of Celosel’s death in the highlands of Arathi, finally succumbed to infection from a poisoned Horde blade. 

He hadn’t wanted to send anyone at all.

“Magister Umbric? Are you alright?” 

The whispers quieted, and Duskwalker was peering at him from beneath furrowed and thick blue-black brows. “Magister Umbric?” the instructor asked again. 

“Fine.” Shaw had requested a presence in Theramore as well, and Duskwalker had promised to fill it. Duskwalker had been one of his first assistants, back in Silvermoon. Had been the one to stumble upon Solarian’s journal, the mind behind all the powerful mathematical calculations it took to work the spells. He didn’t want to lose Duskwalker too. 

Umbric sighed. “I need a walk,” he muttered, to no one in particular. No one stopped him as he headed for the door, and even Shani held her tongue. 

He was in Stormwind, for the time being. Aowyn had been given back control of the camp in Zuldazar ﹣ he thought for sure he was being recalled just to be ordered to Nazjatar. “You did well in Dazar’alor,” Wyrmbane had told him. “You’re wasted out there in the jungle.”

At least someone recognized his ability. 

He didn’t much like Stormwind. It was hot, for one ﹣ though anything less than Zuldazar’s oppressive heat was a marked improvement. But it was poorly planned, haphazard in a lazy, half-hearted way, as though the builders had tried and then lost interest. He missed Silvermoon, with its long streets and wide open plazas, the pop up stalls selling flowers and fruit and small, quality trinkets. He used to buy his cologne from a small parfumerie on the Bazaar’s north side, before they stopped distilling mana into scents. He had to order it through some quel’dorei perfumer in Dalaran now, and it didn’t quite smell the same. 

But most of all, Stormwind was _crowded._ Between the masses of people and groups of huddled together buildings, it wasn’t a pretty place, in Umbric’s opinion, and all of the little alleys and secret corridors made it seem shady and suspect. 

It was worse today. The anniversary of the Burning Legion's defeat was upon them, and the shops would be closing soon. Umbric had gathered that they closed every year for one day, a sort of extended moment of silence or something. No distractions from the lives lost. He thought it horribly depressing.

Quel’Thalas had lost over seven million souls, in the ten days it took Arthas Menethil to march up the Greenwood Pass with his army of the dead. By the end, after the bodies had been raised and burned, after the Sunwell’s implosion and the weak’s descent to Wretchedness, after Kael’thas ﹣ they’d lost ninety-two percent of the elven population. Quel’Thalas didn’t need a day of contemplation to remember their dead. They never forgot.

The human way of mourning unsettled him. He heard people ask each other about fathers and brothers, sons and daughters, sisters and mothers and friends. He watched them talk openly about their losses, without anger or resentment at being questioned. Elves didn’t do that. After the Scourge, it had become almost taboo, to ask someone about their family. Even a simple “are you married?” or “how are your children?” in the spirit of polite conversation was an insult. No one asked about families anymore, not to strangers on the street, rarely to close friends. Even to people who knew. An elf either volunteered the information or said nothing at all. 

Stormwind boasted a number of quel’dorei, perhaps the highest population outside of Dalaran, but he noted that they weren’t quite participating in the ceremonies. Elves mourned in their own way, and while they did not invite him to sit with them, sharing solemn, homemade meals in the large park at the center of the mage quarter, neither did they seem to look at him with the distrust that normally tinged their interactions with the ren’dorei. Right now, there were no void elves or high elves. They were all just _elves,_ and they would share the space. 

Nicanor and Shani Ward were hosting a dinner tomorrow, at the little inn they ran near the embassy. Umbric had argued hard for the business ﹣ the Wards were good people, and the ren’dorei deserved to have a place to call their own, even if it was only a two story cottage with a dozen beds crammed into the upstairs. It was nicer than anything they’d had in the Ghostlands, at any rate. Greymane had been against it. _Every void elf to the front lines,_ he’d demanded. But Nicanor and Shani Ward had never been fighters, would not have lasted in the Zandalari jungles or the cold of Kul Tiras. They had an order straight from the High King himself, allowing them to stay and maintain their little inn. 

_Everyone deserves a safe space to call their own._ Those had been the little king’s words. Stormwind could not afford to divide its dwindling space between them all, not the way it had ceded the dwarven district decades ago. But it was not too much to ask for a plot of land off Olivia’s Pond, and it was there the ren’dorei called home. Sometimes Umbric even preferred it there to his fancy flat in the mage quarter. 

He was on his way home ﹣ his impossible, ridiculous tower home. He’d avoided the worst of the crowds and the last minute shopping, taking the long way round over the canals, the unbuffered winds from the harbor ruffling his hair. Winters in Stormwind were times for gales and rain but the skies were clear today, if a little grey and chill. He missed Silvermoon and its eternal spring. Hells, he even missed the Ghostlands.

The color red shouldn’t incite such feelings of excitement, but Umbric’s breath quickened anyway. There at the edge of the canal, perched on a stone bench, sat Valeera, wrapped in a red cloak that didn’t quite conceal her blonde tresses. He followed the line of her eyes, gazing somewhere out near Lion’s Rest, but the cemetery was empty. 

No, not empty. If he squinted, he could just make out the stocky form of Genn Greymane, standing off to the side of someone smaller, heavily favoring one leg. King Anduin. A guard was posted a discreet distance away, far enough for privacy but close enough to be of assistance should it be needed.

“Evening,” he called quietly, and though he doubted Valeera’d been unaware of his presence, she jumped anyway. Her hood tumbled down her golden hair as she turned her head, and Umbric caught a flash of something he couldn’t quite name before it was gone, wiped clean as if it had never been at all.

“Evening,” she said, her voice low. 

Gesturing, he asked, “Want some company?” The question lingered in the air, the circumstances twisting its meaning. _Are you alright? Do you want to talk?_

She didn’t actually answer him, but after a moment she made room on the bench and he sat. The harbor stretched out before them, crawling with dock workers and moving cargo. Nothing to indicate the slowing of the city above, the closing down and the silence. On the docks, it was still business as usual. 

Umbric had never been one for grand displays of affection. He hadn’t come from it ﹣ he couldn’t once remember his own parents touching. He didn’t think it was something couples did, and he supposed, as odd a pair as they made, that that was what he and Valeera were. Still, sitting with her there, listening to the sharp slapping of water along the sides of the canal, he felt almost compelled to reach out just then, to drape his arm around her shoulders and pull her to him. He couldn’t explain it, and as a compromise he placed his arm behind her, palm flat on the stone. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body in the brisk twilight.

He’d learned to read Valeera, over the course of many afternoons and countless nights. The way she rolled her tongue between her teeth, or the just so arch of her eyebrows. The straightness of her limbs and spine. So much of Valeera was in the way she carried herself, the way she moved, and the things she didn’t say spoke volumes. 

There was a gentle pressure as she leaned into his arm, her back not quite aligning with the limb. Her shoulders drooped, almost imperceptibly. Like a great weight was bearing down on her and, for just a moment, it was too much to bear. The rest of her body was almost rigid, so much so that when her fingers brushed along the outside of his thigh, not in any bold sexual move but quieter, seeking, he started. He hadn’t felt her move at all. 

“I don’t understand this city,” he said, not overtly watching but keeping her just in the corner of his eye. “They just shut everything down?”

“They do it every year.” Valeera’s own gaze had returned to Lion’s Rest, to the large tomb and the two solitary figures before it. “The Archbishop holds mass in the Cathedral, and Anduin leads a service in the afternoon.” And that was something about Valeera, he’d learned. Other people she referred to by titles or even last names, but the king was always simply Anduin. He didn’t know what that meant. “Last year he organized a luminaria around the city. One candle for every life lost.” Her voice caught, and she fell silent. 

Silvermoon did something like that, Umbric’d heard. The High Priest had started the tradition the year before he’d been banished; Umbric remembered the Chapel of Light, lit up like the Sunwell itself, thousands of faerie lights. Too many to contain in one building, too many dead to each have their own ﹣ all of Silvermoon couldn’t contain seven million lights. It had been humbling, and devastating. 

“It must have been beautiful.”

Valeera had gone sharp around the edges, rigid. Sat up a little straighter. “It was,” she murmured. And after a moment, “I don’t think I’ll be by tonight.”

“No?”

“No.”

And normally Umbric would think nothing of it. Valeera occupied a position in Stormwind much higher than his own, had been pulled away from him before. But Valeera had mentioned, when she’d left that morning, that she would be back. _We should have dinner,_ she’d mentioned airily. Off handedly, as if she didn’t particularly care. She’d gotten pretty good at hiding her feelings in a blanket of nonchalance. 

What had happened in the ten hours since? Umbric spoke two languages, and he spoke them well, but he didn’t have the words to ask Valeera what had changed. 

Maybe it was just the melancholy in the air. 

“What are you doing then?” he asked instead. 

She shifted her weight, so that only the very base of her spine lay along the inside of his arm now. Just barely touching. “I think I’m going to see Anduin.” 

He didn’t know what hurt more. That she had actually answered him, or that her answer was _Anduin._

 _She won’t stay with you._ The thought flashed immediately in his mind, and it wasn’t sure if the voice was his own or the Void’s. _She belongs to the little king. She’ll always be his._

And Umbric knew that the High King had lost his father to the Legion. Knew that Valeera, at the end of the day, would always return to Stormwind Keep, to King Wrynn, the Alliance. It was a sobering thought. 

The Alliance held such a tight hold over them all. By their word, people ﹣ _his_ people ﹣ lived and died, lost, and lost some more. 

_Kill them all._

He caught that one dead in its tracks, smashed the little niggling tendril before it could worm its way any farther into his mind. It wouldn’t help anything. No matter how badly he longed to wrap his fingers around Anduin Wrynn’s thin white neck, to watch the life leave the little king’s eyes. 

At the thought of laying a hand to the child king, his insides churned. As if he could. Anduin Wrynn was so infused with Holy Light that he’d incinerate Umbric right where he stood.

  
  
  


He’d been dreaming. One of the good ones, of Silvermoon and his parents when he was a little boy. Their home off Falconwing Square, one of the nicer ones for untitled aristocracy. The balcony off his bedroom had been reconstructed in his mind in perfect detail, the view of the gardens of Feth’s Way untainted by undeath or the blue-black of the Void. He felt weight pressing against him, warm and gentle, more solid than the unfiltered Thalassian sun, and when he came to it was to another body in his bed, curled up tight against his spine, knees brushing the curve of his ass. 

“Val?” He couldn’t get his tongue to cooperate. Dimly, a voice in the back of his mind reminded him that Valeera didn’t like being called that. 

“Shut up.” The words had no bite in them. His back was cold where she’d pulled the covers away to crawl under them, where her extremities pressed against the fabric of his shirt and pants.

“C’mere.” Umbric rolled, and Valeera did not, didn’t move at all. It wasn’t until his arms went around her that he felt the trembling, the little shudders too controlled to be from the cold. She was unyielding against him, as though, if she relaxed even a single muscle, she would fall apart. 

He was awake now, whispers of Quel’Thalas and Silvermoon trickling through his hands like water. “Valeera,” he murmured, “what’s…”

“Shut _up.”_

He pulled her to him, her pointy elbows and hard knees, hands flat against the planes of her back. He rubbed one along her arm, and was suddenly struck with the memory of the first night they had ever spent together, when he'd been too exhausted to portal back to Dazar'alor and made her stay. When the nightmares had come for him as they always had, and without hesitation she'd climbed into his bed, a physical barrier between him and the visions. She'd been crying when he woke, and he’d held her just like this. 

_What’s going on? What happened?_

A thousand different scenarios ran through his mind. The little king? Had he said something? What in the fuck could someone like Anduin Wrynn have done to someone as unshakeable as Valeera?

Her forehead butted against his chest, and he felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin. _Don’t talk. Don’t ask me anything. Don’t make me explain._

Umbric held her until the shivering stopped, until she finally unraveled, her long legs sliding against his as she uncurled. She hadn’t even changed, was still wearing the clothes he’d seen her in along the canals.

“Changed your mind, I see.” 

A slender hand clenched at his shirt. “Something like that.” 

He swept a lock of hair off her shoulder, felt her go very still beneath him. Pulled his hand away. “Alright?” _Do you want to talk about it?_

Valeera rolled over. Pulled all of her hair over her opposite shoulder, away from him. “I’m fine.” _No._

A hand, feather light at her hip. “It’s late. Get some sleep.” _I’m here, if you need me._

One foot, making its way to rest on the inside of his calf, reaching back for him. “Goodnight.” _I know. Thank you._

When he woke the next morning, the bed was cold, and she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that some locations (Thas'alah and Greenwood Pass) are from Warcraft III. Morningstar City is mine. 
> 
> Umbric's past, especially concerning Rommath, is touched on in another work of mine, Enough: Short Story Long. The Umbric-concerning chapters are [seven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298159/chapters/59005717#workskin), [ten](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298159/chapters/59317966#workskin), and [twenty-nine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298159/chapters/62330566#workskin), if you'd like the backstory in his reminiscing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ren'dorei receive good news on the anniversary of the Burning Legion's defeat, and Umbric worries what the Alliance will demand for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated M for descriptions of violence.

Umbric didn’t see Valeera again for several days. He tried not to let it bother him. 

_She’s with the little king,_ the whispers told him. It didn’t help that they were probably right. 

Someone was speaking, clinking a spoon against a glass for quiet. There weren’t many of them tonight, perhaps fifty, in the Wards’ crowded Diel Thalas inn, and they hadn’t been particularly loud, but the murmuring quieted at the sound, fifty pairs of eyes turning to Nicanor in the middle of the room. He wasn’t sitting, as they were, on soft cushions, and he had put down the overlarge tray he had been shouldering, someone else setting it for him on the low table to one side. 

“I know,” he was saying, “that this is a somber occasion. We’ve lost many lives in our exile, and many more to the Horde. Too many, since…” He dropped his eyes, briefly. “Well. You know.” 

If they weren’t in Stormwind, in the heart of the city with spies and gnomish listening devices embedded in every surface, Umbric knew what his friend would say. Even speaking in Thalassian didn’t guarantee their words would remain secret, tucked away as they were in the nondescript cottage. _We’ve lost too many lives since entering this Alliance._

But Nicanor was gesturing now, the momentary gloom forgotten, and his wife was stepping delicately around the other ren’dorei in the room. Elestrae Dawnshard was pressing a hand to her own mouth, looking for all the world as though she were holding something back, and beside her Keira Onyxraven had ducked her head. She was a priest, and her demeanor just now…

 _What now?_ What did Keira and Elestrae know? Had something happened, had someone else been killed in service to Mathias Shaw and the Grand Alliance?

But Nicanor wasn’t upset, and as he pulled Shani to him, a wide grin split his face. “We've lost too many lives, but on this most solemn day, Shani and I would like to announce that we’re bringing one back.” 

Umbric didn’t understand at first. The dead were dead, they couldn’t come back. But Atynar had shot up with a roar and yanked Nicanor to him, and Keira and Elestrae were crying tears of _joy,_ and even morose, sullen Aevedos was banging his fist on the table, gesturing for Tysiel to pour shots of Dalaran noir, and suddenly it clicked. 

_Shani Ward was with child._

In her belly, Shani Ward carried the first elven child since they’d become ren’dorei ﹣ the first child to be conceived since Rommath had banished them so many years ago. A new life, rare and precious and sacred as all elven lives were.

Diel Thalas erupted in cheers, the noise deafening as they all flocked to the happy couple.

“Selama ashal’ren’dorei!” _Justice for the ren’dorei!_

“Andu falah’dor!” _Let the balance be restored!_

“Ishnu dal’dieb!” and “Ishnu alah!” _Good fortune to your family! Congratulations to you!_

“Surfas’alah denai!” 

Umbric found himself on his feet, in the couple’s orbit. Possessed, he yanked them both to him, and he thought someone was crying. Maybe it was Nicanor. Maybe it was him. 

“Congratulations, my friends!” He reached first for one and then the other, cupping their grinning faces in both hands, and for the first time in a long time, the whispers were blessedly silent. 

“Tysiel!” someone cried. “Another round! No, Shani, sit down!”

“It’s my inn﹣”

“And tonight we thank you for the use of it! You are relieved of your duties, get off your feet!” 

Atynar forcibly maneuvered a laughing Nicanor to the floor, his ass sliding off the pillow and hitting the wood hard. More gently, Keira and Elestrae had ushered Shani down beside them, were plying her with fresh fruit and plates of food. 

“What can you have?” Tysiel asked her, her hand stayed over several bottles behind the modest bar.

“Whatever I want!” Shani crowed. “Do we have any moonberry juice left?” Tysiel shook her head.

Someone held up a few silver pieces. “Someone run into the city and buy Shani some moonberry juice!” 

The coins were snatched, Dewil grinning broadly over his shoulder. “Want anything else, Wards?”

Umbric reached for him, pressed a bit of gold in his hand. “Go to the bakery," he directed, "the one outside the mage quarter run by the old quel’dorei. He won’t like it, but give him three gold pieces and he’ll give you buns with powdered sugar. And then go to the flower shop - the kaldorei-owned one, by the tower ﹣ and come back with the most expensive bouquet they have. Buy the whole fucking shop, if you like.” 

Dewil gave him a smart little bow. “As you command, magister.” And then he was gone, Atynar on his heels and the door banging shut behind them. The shops were closed today, but perhaps the elven residents would be more willing to do a bit of discreet business and if not, could be persuaded by good coin. 

With Atynar gone, Nicanor was able to resume hosting, but whenever Shani made to get up it caused such a racket she was forced to sit back down. “My _food,_ ” she lamented, only half meaning it.

“You say that like none of us can cook!” Elestrae laughed, stripping the woman of her apron and throwing it over her own head. She tied the strings behind her back and snagged the arm of the nearest person, and together they retreated to the kitchen and Shani’s gently simmering stews.

Dewil and Atynar returned sometime later, two boxes of fluffy pastries and an obnoxious flower arrangement in hand. The flowers they placed at Shani’s newly acquired table, and suddenly there were plates being passed around, sugar buns being doled out. They were warm, and the sugar got everywhere, and someone stared calling for napkins.

Atynar caught Umbric’s ear as he served him a bun. “They were… _displeased,_ to say the least,” he murmured, “to see us.”

Umbric kept his eyes focused on the festivities. On Tysiel playing barkeep, and Elestrae clearing dishes to make room for more food. “They give you any trouble?”

“Some.” Atynar took a proffered handful of napkins from someone, held one out. “Even with the gold, old Dawnbreeze didn’t want to let us in. Something about violating the sanctity of the day.”

Dawnbreeze of all people should know how they felt this night. The quel’dorei population had never recovered from the Scourge, was in fact _dwindling_ ; the birth of an elven child was as miraculous to them as it was to the ren’dorei. Dawnbreeze, of all people, should be more than happy to provide them with a few overpriced pastries, especially with the handsome tip incurred for the inconvenience. Umbric frowned. 

“You didn’t…?”

Atynar shook his head. “Of course not, magister. You’re out quite a bit of gold though.”

“That’s fine. I’d have given the whole purse.” Tonight, with the promise of new life just around the corner, and fifty happy, smiling faces toasting and singing, nothing could ruin his mood.

* * *

“Magister Umbric, I understand there was an incident last week involving some of your void elves.”

Umbric resisted the urge to roll his eyes. There had been a lot of incidents. Esmer had been attacked in Mechagon and they still didn’t know by whom. Faedra had sent him a report of high tensions between her and the humans with whom she was stationed in Arathi, increasingly unreasonable demands for void portals at all hours of the day and night. He was worried about her sanity; it wasn’t healthy, to spend so much time inside the tears of reality. The Void whispers were louder there, harder to ignore.

And the disregard for two dozen ren’dorei for Nazjatar, the sending of only Haalie Millionia, had predictably caused Greymane to lose his mind. Accusations of disloyalty rang in Umbric's ears even a week later.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” he said evenly, smoothing an imaginary crinkle in the corner of his notes. “There have been a handful of incidents, which I believe I’ve already brought to your attention.” 

Shaw cleared his throat. “On the anniversary, a Caledra Dawnbreeze reported that two of your ren’dorei demanded her father open his shop and sell to them.”

The image of the Dawnbreezes, people Umbric knew and until this very second liked, flashed through his mind, thick, pulsing tentacles wrapped around their throats, stuffed into their traitorous, lying mouths, suffocating around the﹣

“Stormwind observes the loss of Alliance lives one day of the year, magister,” Shaw continued. “We close the shops to encourage remembrance, and the bonding of those left behind. There are notices posted throughout the city ﹣ your people couldn’t have been unaware.” 

“They were not,” Umbric agreed. “I hoped the extra gold I’d given them would smooth over any ill feelings at the intrusion.”

“It isn’t a difficult thing to finish your shopping and plan ahead, magister.”

“This was a special circumstance. I assumed, seeing as the quel’dorei and ren’dorei share a history, that the Dawnbreezes would understand and make an exception. We elves don’t mourn in the same way you humans do.”

Shaw’s lip twitched. “Is that so? Breaking into shops is how the ren’dorei grieve?”

To his right, at the center of the table, King Anduin put up his hand. “What was the reason?” 

_Breaking into shops._ Is that what the Dawnbreezes had said? Umbric bristled, clenching his fist so hard his fingernails dug into his palm.

“One of our own informed myself and several others that they are expecting a child.” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “Children are a rarity among elves, and not something we planned for.”

“A child?”

“Oh!” The little king’s eyes lit up. “That _is_ happy news! Congratulations, magister.”

_He doesn’t mean it._

“If I may ask, who are the lucky couple?” The king looked genuinely interested, was scribbling something on a sheet of paper before him. “I should like to say something in person.”

“Nicanor and Shani Ward.”

The king frowned, the slightest downturn of his mouth, nose wrinkling as he thought. “I’ve heard that name… They own the Diel Thalas, next to Olivia’s Pond, don’t they?”

Umbric blinked, not expecting that. “Yes, your majesty. By your order.”

Anduin was nodding, making another note. In Shaw’s direction, he said, “It’s fine.”

_It isn’t. It isn’t. One more strike against the ren’dorei, a mark placed upon the Wards’ heads._

He tried to ignore the whispers, the visions they gave him. Anduin stepping over the threshold of Diel Thalas, the Light within crackling in proximity to so much Void magic; flanked by Mathias Shaw, by King Greymane and soldiers. The order ripped in two, the Wards forced onto the battlefield. The little light within Shani going out.

“﹣ane is requesting ships,” someone was saying. It seemed as though the conversation had moved on. “What about _the Middenwake?_ The azerite gathered along the way would be a blessing for our forces.”

“You would need to take that up with Captain Fairwind and Master Crestfall,” Shaw said dismissively. “I believe _the Middenwake_ is still undergoing repairs from the Battle of Dazar’alor, at any rate.”

 _"_ _The Wind’s Redemption_ is shipshape,” Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth put in. “We’ve no other pressing matters, and Captains Greensails, Stonestare, and Thermospark have yet to be found.”

“By all means.” Shaw gestured, as if to say _Go ahead._ “The reports from King Greymane indicate he does not have the men to aid in their search. I’m sure you and your crew would be welcomed.”

“We could put Captain Proudmoore and _the Dawnsailor_ on it as well,” Jes-Tereth continued, tapping one finger to her chin. “He’s had experience with both azerite hauling and naga.”

“Good idea.” Shaw wrote something down, pressing a bit too hard on the pen. 

“What about you, Magister Umbric?” And Umbric’s head jerked up. The little king was looking at him, palms flat against the table. “How many could you send? _The Dawnsailor_ would leave from this harbor.” 

_None. I gave you Haalie Millionia. You don’t need any more._

“The ren’dorei are spread quite thin as it is, Your Majesty,” he said tersely. “There are still twenty of us in Zuldazar and Nazmir, and I’ve just dispatched a team to Stromgarde, to aid High Thane Bronzebeard.”

Anduin’s face was sympathetic. “I understand, but a dozen or so battlemages would not be unappreciated.”

 _We do not_ **_have_ ** _a dozen battlemages!_

_He’ll kill you all. By his word, the ren’dorei will cease to exist, slaughtered en masse for a war you never wanted._

“There are one hundred and fourteen of us,” Umbric grit out. “What you ask is the equivalent of a thousand foot soldiers.”

_He doesn’t care. He would send every last one of you to your deaths at the bottom of the sea._

“You’ve handled your people admirably, with minimal loss of life. All we ask is twelve more mages. The power you command is formidable, and may turn the tide against the naga.”

The boy king spoke of the power of the Void but the aura around him rippled. Wavered, against Umbric and his just controlled rage. 

_He fears the Void._

All ignorant people feared the Void.

_He would save his precious Light-touched soldiers from the wrath of Azshara while sending yours to die. The Light is rationed, its abundance overlooked, while those chosen few with mastery over the Void are sacrificed._

Minimal loss of life! This child didn’t know what he was talking about. They had lost so many irreplaceable souls, their faces blinking through his mind. Zarra and Celosel and Rauvir and Mastus and Kelain and Falania and Loranis and﹣

_See how he likes it, when his own are murdered. People he knows and loves._

Mathias Shaw sat across from him, hands busy with coffee and papers. No time to reach for his ornate lions’ head daggers. Tentacles slithering unseen beneath the table, wrapping around his ankles and ripping him from his seat. Shaw was old ﹣ the little king must have known him his entire life. Must consider him a friend. How would he feel, as Void tendrils bore beneath the spymaster’s skin, replacing the blood in his veins, watching the eerie violet glow overcome the green of his eyes and bleed from beneath his ridiculous, overwaxed mustache?

How would little King Anduin feel when it was his own life threatened? At this distance, half a room and a heavy wooden table between them could he even call the Light before Umbric got his hands on him? Wrapped with enough Void energies, would the Light even burn him as he wrenched the boy from his seat, as his own black aura enveloped him, smothered him inside a prison of his own making and trapping him in his own head? Could the insanity take him fast enough? Umbric’s fingers twitched, eyes swept the room. 

_It would be so easy to overpower these people. By the time the guards threw open the doors, they would all be dead. Atoning for their sins in the Shadowlands to the ren’dorei they killed._

He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Another guard, boredly shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She wasn’t even looking at them. 

_Go on,_ the whispers urged. _Reach out. Let go._ **_Relax._ ** _Teach them a lesson, just reach out._

Tendrils slithering up Jes-Tereth’s leg, rooting her to the floor. She was unarmed, he thought. Who besides Shaw would bring a weapon to a formal, sit down meeting?

Light and Void, would he love to murder Shaw. 

The blood would matt his copper hair, shimmering almost obscenely against the blue-black of the tentacle jamming itself in his ear canal, twitching in his brain, rooting through every thought the spymaster had ever had. What sort of secrets lived in the mind of a man like Shaw? What sort of things would he see, if forced to confront the Void?

Someone came into his field of vision, and in his mind the tendrils reached for them too. Wrapped around the leather boot, burrowing beneath the skin. Stringing her up bodily by her delicate wrists, tentacles tangling in her long blonde hair. Yanking it, ripping it out by the roots, until she turned her emerald eyes to﹣

_Valeera._

The vision dissipated. The Void was gone. Valeera stood at the edge of the room, just inside the door, and she was fine. 

He unclenched his fist, wincing as his nails left his skin. 

He looked at King Anduin, the boy’s face gentle and entirely unroyal. The Light simmered beneath his skin. 

Twelve mages. 

Umbric took a deep breath in through his nose. Exhaled. “I will see what I can do.” 

  
  
  


Valeera remained stoic by the door for the remainder of the meeting. She did not look at him. And when King Anduin called for its end, she stepped past him without recognition. Bent over, and whispered in the little king’s ear. 

It was nothing, he told himself. Probably some assignment or other that he wasn’t privy to. He wasn’t aware of most of Valeera’s assignments, it wasn’t unusual. He still had no idea what she’d been doing in Dazar’alor for the better part of a year. 

It was fine. 

_Is it, though?_ Valeera had taken a seat ﹣ Greymane’s empty one, at Anduin’s right hand ﹣ and was talking quietly to him. Shaw stood nearby, the only other person who hadn’t yet left. The spymaster was listening intently, though appearing not to be, focusing as he was on straightening his notes and files. Umbric thought perhaps that the half a decibel Valeera added to her tone was for Shaw’s benefit, to reach his aging human ears. 

“﹣Nobles are reviewing now,” she was murmuring. “They aren’t happy.”

“He can’t be in the city without repealing the Prestor Edict.” 

Valeera fixed the little king with a look Umbric couldn’t read. Concern, maybe, and anger. “Anduin, why are you doing this?”

Anduin straightened, and his voice sounded… defensive? “Magni appointed him. I can’t risk him in the Stockade every time he drops in to make his reports.”

Valeera opened her mouth to reply but shut it again at a cough from the spymaster. Shaw’s eyes flicked briefly towards the door ﹣ to _him,_ Umbric realized ﹣ and Valeera’s followed. Her lips pursed, and she pulled back from the king. Placed both feet flat on the floor. Not to stand, not to follow him out but to ground herself there. To assert that her place was in that room, with the High King of the Alliance and its spymaster. 

He averted his eyes, and busied himself with papers that didn’t need fixing, and then left the room. Left the three of them there to discuss whatever it was they were discussing. It didn’t affect him, and he shouldn’t have listened in the first place. 

Valeera would never follow him. He couldn’t keep hoping she would. 

* * *

_Stormwind was bleeding._

_A cold, silent wind blew through the city, ruffling the torn lion’s head banners. Bodies littered the streets, oozing dark blood from gruesome wounds, Void aberrations feasting on their innards. Umbric stepped over them; the aberrations watched him warily but did not attack. They could see the blue-black light inside, knew he was one of their own._

_The Dawnbreezes lay battered and broken along the many steps leading up to Stormwind Keep. The father reached for him, pleading mercy, and Umbric took a certain sick satisfaction in grinding the man’s hand into the stone beneath his gold-trimmed boot._

_“No one has had mercy for the ren’dorei,” he said, detached. “Why should I have any for you?”_

_The screams followed him into the castle, singing in his blood._

_The Great Hall was decorated with the bodies of sin’dorei. The Warden of the Sunwell, hair lank and dripping with void jelly, ambassador to all he’d once held sacred. Lor’themar Theron, his other eye torn out, blood crusting his handsome face. Grand Magister Rommath, injured but alive, his high collar gone and his black velvet robes not entirely hiding the tentacles that held him in place. The arcane tattoos that encircled his strong arms pulsed against the smothering Void energies, his last stand against his inevitable corruption._

_“Do you believe me now?” Umbric stood before him, in the center of the throne room._

_“Fuck you.” The Grand Magister was trying, he knew, to break free. To reach deep inside and call forth the fire. He didn’t know yet that it was futile. A muscle in his jaw worked as he struggled against his bonds, as the tentacles responded in kind and tightened their grip._

_He laid a hand against the magister’s face, a soft touch. Almost gentle. “Ohhh, Rommath,” Umbric sighed. He brushed his thumb along sharp cheekbones, hooked his fingers behind an ear. “You’ll see.” And then he hauled Rommath to him and crashed their mouths together, licking along the seam of his lips and feeding him Void sorceries through his furious open mouth. Rommath shuddered against him, fought against the power as he always had and Umbric ached for it. He watched the Void bleed into the burning fel green of his eyes, smirking as the other man stilled. As the warring forces in his body_ ﹣ _the arcane, the fel, the righteous fire_ ﹣ _were consumed. Gave in. Until he went slack-jawed and pliant in Umbric’s arms, staring at him without really seeing._

_Umbric remembered that feeling. Remembered the euphoria, the first time he touched the Void._

_“Do you understand now?” he murmured, brushing Void ichor from the man’s lashes._

_Rommath answered him in a whisper. “Yes.”_

_“Good.” And then Umbric reared back and struck him with the flat of his hand, Rommath’s head snapping back, the crack unbearably loud in the silence of the Keep. The Grand Magister slumped to the floor and did not get up again, and the tentacles bore him noiselessly away._

_With a rustle of fabric Umbric crossed the hall, settled himself on the lion’s throne. There were people with him now, or perhaps they’d always been, strung up and bleeding and gasping for breath. Some of them were dying, and the thought thrilled him._

_King Greymane, fur matted and canines broken. Talons scrabbling helplessly against the irrefragable Void tendrils that held him in place. For his crimes against the ren’dorei, he would face judgement, and the Void would not be kind. His eyes bulged, and he made a horrible strangled noise, nearly drowned by the cracking of his ribcage._

_Halford Wyrmbane, his shiny plate dull and dented, helmet gone; and beside him Shandris Feathermoon. The sneer she’d always reserved for him had been replaced with cold fear. “Don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Return to Elune’s light!”_

_“Elune never held a light for me,” he snapped._

_“Your Sunwell then! Can’t you see you will_ ﹣ _”_

 _“_ **_Do not speak of the Sunwell to me!_ ** _” With a snap of his wrist she fell silent, her neck twisted at an awkward angle, the tendrils caressing her skin hungrily._

_Keeshan and the little gnome Steelspark. He remembered them dimly, smug, laughing figures just outside of his peripheral vision, the unease they’d displayed around him, their refusal to work with his ren’dorei. Impaled, their unseeing eyes turned skyward._

_Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth, her curls fallen over her face. She’d hidden her disdain well, and for her dishonesty he ordered her suffocated, tears streaming from her eyes as the Void crammed itself down her throat._

_“Umbric!” came an angry voice, and suddenly Mathias Shaw materialized before him. His lions' head daggers were gone and blood poured from a broken nose. Umbric frowned. He wasn’t a violent man, and yet he wished he’d been the one to mar Shaw’s pretty face._

_The spymaster was still fighting, just as Rommath had. One of his shoulders was dislocated; Umbric thought he’d done it himself. No matter. The Void held tight, would not let him escape._

_“Keep my name out of your filthy mouth,” he said coldly. He had no use for Mathias Shaw, murderer and sociopath, but he didn’t kill him. Not yet. “Where’s your precious monarch?”_

_“Right here.” It was not Anduin who had spoken or even Shaw, but Valeera. She traipsed into the throne room, dragging a bound Anduin Wrynn. The Void curled around her, lapping gently at the edges, snaking around her wrists and ankles and the boy king’s neck. She stared at him impassively, her black eyes taking in the scene before her. The red of her cloak was the only color in the room._

_“Valeera, stop!” Anduin begged, twisting helplessly in her steely grip. One leg dragged uselessly behind him as she hauled him towards Umbric and the lion’s throne. “What are you doing?”_

_“How does it feel, Anduin Wrynn?” Umbric gestured towards the carnage, the crumpled bodies lining the walls. “How does it feel to lose the ones you love?”_

_Light sputtered and died in the little king’s hands, and though the tendrils around his body recoiled, Valeera did not. She held him firm against the dais, and at his small act of rebellion, forced him down to one knee, and did not flinch at his cry of pain._

_“Your Majesty!” Shaw turned desperate eyes to the woman, spitting blood from his mouth. “Valeera, come back to yourself! Fight it! You cannot kill your king!”_

_“Valeera Sanguinar does not belong to you anymore,” Umbric intoned. “She is a servant of the Void. She is_ **_mine_ ** _.”_

_The spymaster’s eyes widened at the appearance of a cruel blade in Valeera’s hand, its orcish engravings glinting malevolently in the dim light. She held it against Anduin’s throat and waited, patient for the order, one she would follow without hesitation._

_“Do it.” Umbric kept his eyes on Shaw, on the sweat beading along his copper hairline, at the desperate bobbing of his adam’s apple as he swallowed. “Valeera, do it!”_

_The blade withdrew, slowly, the air filled with the sounds of hyperventilating. The little king tried to call forth the Light once more, struggled in Valeera’s iron grip, and then with a flash the blade made contact with the soft flesh of Anduin’s thr_ ﹣

  
  
  


Umbric woke with a start, breaching consciousness all at once. He lay there, in his bed in his room, in his flat in the Wizard's Sanctum, for several moments, breath coming in short pants. The throne room was gone. His shirt was damp against his chest, and he didn’t know whether the vision was quite a nightmare, or just a dream. 

What he wouldn’t give to murder﹣

“Stop,” Umbric said aloud, the whispers shrinking back in his mind. _“Stop.”_

They would be back, he knew, but for now they let him be. Left him to the memories of the dream, which did not fade as normal ones did but stayed, seared into his brain and flashing at odd moments. He remembered all of his dreams, now that the Void had tainted them. 

He stripped off his sweaty clothes and ran a bath. Stayed there for longer than was strictly necessary, decompressing. The warmth of the water helped chase away the chill of his dream.

Nicanor had told him the Diel Thalas had been paid a visit, hurriedly assured him that nothing was wrong, nothing at all. The boy king had graced the inn with congratulations for the happy couple, and a permit for the expansion of the building. Shani was excited, Nicanor had told him, already planning to enlarge the second floor and add a third, to throw up walls where there had been none before, and to excavate a space in the cellar for more storage. Umbric didn’t trust it. Nothing was given for free in this world, and sooner or later King Anduin would call in their debts. 

He sunk into the water, stewing in the perfumed heat. He didn’t want to think about what the Alliance would demand for that small kindness. None of the ren'dorei would begrudge the Wards for it, would gladly go even if told to their very faces the Wards were the reason why. 

“I gave your people a home and coin,” he imagined Andruin Wrynn saying. “I allowed Nicanor and Shani Ward to stay in Stormwind and raise their family. Someone has to take their place. A favor for a favor, a life for a life.” 

A frustrated, angry scream tore from his mouth, and Umbric sat bolt upright, bathwater sloshing over the sides of the tub and puddling on the floor. He hauled himself out, scraping the towel over his wet limbs with more force than needed. Even in this, what should be a _happy, blessed_ occasion, the ren’dorei would suffer, and the Alliance would not care at all. 

They hadn’t cared about his one hundred and fifty-two ren'dorei. Adults with skills and strength to give. Why would that change for the birth of one helpless elven child?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Prestor Edict comes from [The Temptation of Anduin Wrynn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025753/chapters/57805579), by silriven. It's an amazing Wranduin fic I encourage you all to read. The Prestor Edict states that no black dragon may enter the city of Stormwind, and was passed into law by Varian after the business with Onyxia. 
> 
> The Warden of the Sunwell, mentioned very briefly here in Umbric's dream, is a title held by Lor'themar Theron. In another fic of mine (in the Tales of Silvermoon series), I turned the title in an actual person because I feel like that's kind of something the belfs should have? A dedicated guardian to their most sacred and holy site. Since the Stormwind Secret Archives series takes place in the same canon as the Tales of Silvermoon series, she would not be unknown to Umbric and thus had to be mentioned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atynar has a suggestion and Umbric and Valeera have a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again rated M for dream violence.

The Diel Thalas was busier than normal these days. It now seemed almost a requirement amongst the ren’dorei to spend at least one meal of every day at the inn, and more than once someone would jump up and help Nicanor and Shani with their duties, leaving a generous amount of coin on the table for the opportunity. The alcohol flowed freely, and Tysiel seemed to have taken up a sort of unofficial position as the Wards’ barkeep. Umbric didn’t think they paid her ﹣ didn’t think Tysiel _allowed_ them to pay her, rather. She tended to her regular job in the Wizards’ Sanctum, constructing complicated enchantments and brewing delicate alchemical potions fueled by Shani’s keen calculations and Nicanor’s near eidetic memory, trying to recreate the intricately delicate spellwork of High Astromancer Solarian; and in the evenings would return with her attempts for approval before settling herself behind the bar. She’d taken an interest in winemaking as well, and for her help the Wards allowed her to peddle her creations to eager mouths like Aevedos and Dewil, the latter of whom nearly always was cut off after a handful of drinks for excessive flirting. 

“You’re a menace,” Tysiel complained.

“Shani didn’t mind my menacing.” Dewil waggled his eyebrows.

“I did!” called Nicanor, smacking him upside the head as he passed.

“I have heard you tell her to flirt back, Ward.”

“Only for more coin, my friend. Only for more coin.”

Atynar, whose day to day activities varied depending on what the good old spymaster set him to, dropped in periodically to help the Wards in the kitchen. Umbric enjoyed his cooking ﹣ Atynar had learned in their exile from the late Nazalia, to whom he had nearly proposed before her untimely death. If it hadn’t been for Nicanor’s intervention, Umbric was sure Atynar would have followed his love to the Shadowlands. He hadn’t been right for years, and had nearly succumbed to the Void’s insanity at the very beginning. Umbric supposed cooking, for him, served a double purpose: the repayment of the debt he felt he owed to his friends, and the fragile attempt to remain close to his lost beloved. 

“I’ve got roast chicken and vegetables, light on the spice!” he boomed, ducking past Tysiel. Umbric held up a hand to signal him over and the other man laid the plate before him, along with a cloth napkin and clean silverware. “Is that all, magister?”

Umbric rolled his eyes. “I don’t need you harassing me for my eating habits as well,” he grumbled. “Shani does it often enough.” _And Valeera._

Atynar grinned. “I just don’t understand why you take everything so _plain.”_ He clutched at his own heart. “You wound me, sir.”

The Void affected them all in different ways, but they all shared a decreased appetite. The news of the Wards’ child had the kitchen the busiest it had ever been, but with the added pressure to not make _too much_ for fear that it would not find its home in a waiting stomach. Once, Umbric had lived for the rich aromas of good Thalassian food, the flavorful oils poured over frying vegetables and delicate spices, but the Void had swiftly put an end to that. Like the fel long ago, it did its best to sate him itself, rejecting anything that was too strong on his tongue. Occasionally he could stomach a properly-cooked bird or boar, even clean his plate, but for a long time he had subsisted on conjured foodstuffs, the sweet taste an appetite stimulant and the nature of their make sitting more lightly in his belly. He still had trouble with fish, which pained the man he had once been deeply. Fish had been among his most favorite of foods, back in Silvermoon. 

He’d begun eating better, once Valeera shadowstepped into his life. Could see a marked improvement in his Void-ravaged body, which was now a bit more plump, no longer quite as wiry as it had been. Valeera herself was often too busy to eat during the day, she’d told him, and more than once he’d stepped into his tent in Xibala to find her helping herself to his untouched dinner as she waited for him. What had started as an annoying bartering tool for her attention had turned into something he quite looked forward to, even on the days he could only manage the most meagre of bites. There was something simple and pleasant about sharing a meal with her, about their bodies close enough to touch without the aching pulse of sexual need, something he had lost after becoming one with the Void. 

“Don’t start,” Umbric warned, but there was no bite in it. He thought there was a bit too much on the plate ﹣ like Valeera, Atynar was a firm believer in the power of food whether the Void allowed him the pleasure or not ﹣ but he knew whatever he did not eat would be packed up and shoved into his hands on the his way out. On the rare nights he woke to the rumbling of his stomach, the cold leftovers made for a tasty, satisfying snack, and Valeera was often pleased to find food in his larder as well. 

Shani bustled by, a tray piled with food, and they watched her approach a table of six and set it all out. Someone booed good-nautredly.

“Why’s Nicanor got you working, Shani?”

The woman laughed. “Because you assholes won’t leave us alone. Someone has to keep this inn running.” 

“Shani!” Atynar caught her eye, made a small gesture Umbric didn’t quite know the meaning of. She nodded.

“Take your break,” she told him, waving a dismissive hand. Someone booed again. “He needs to sit down too!” she snapped in the booer’s direction. 

Atynar sat, reaching for the pitcher across the table and pouring himself water from the glass that abruptly materialized in his hand. 

“Please, I would love company,” Umbric deadpanned. His friend rolled his eyes. 

“You spend all day with those malanore,” Atynar said easily. “Enjoy the company of your people, my friend.” 

Umbric gestured at the noise and the bodies around them. “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

A huffy laugh. “Even _Aevedos_ socializes more than you, sir.”

“Mm.” He took a tentative bite of chicken. It had none of dragonhawk’s savory tang, even with the miniscule amount of oil it had been cooked in, but he liked it better than duck, which was fatty and sweet in a way that made his stomach churn. Both birds Stormwind had in abundance. “Aevedos isn’t stuck in the Keep all day, arguing for people like you to sit in Diel Thalas cooking chicken.” 

Atynar smiled wryly. “I can cook other things.”

“All the more reason for you to stay.” 

A beat. And then ﹣

“Nicanor and Shani?” His voice had dropped.

Umbric shook his head, just a degree to either side. “The High King’s order protects them, and I don’t think the little lion will send a pregnant woman to Nazjatar, no matter how good her enchantments.” 

“The worgen and the spymaster?”

Another shake of the head. “They are very firmly beneath him.” In Silvermoon, the Magisters’ Sanctum had once held absolute power under the authority of the king, and with Kael’thas gone, that power had split into three factions. The Regent Lord reigned supreme, but the Ranger General and the Grand Magister were capable of and often did act on their own, and the Regent Lord could be overturned with proper cause. Stormwind did not work the same way, from what Umbric had seen. The House of Nobles was a thing that existed, but they seemed more concerned with the day to day workings of the city as a whole, and were not involved in greater Alliance affairs. Thankfully, ren’dorei assignments fell very firmly under the umbrella of Alliance affairs.

He didn’t tell Atynar about his misgivings. A crew of dwarves had been hired to start construction on the annex that would be the Wards’ new living quarters, and another team had started excavating the far end of the cellar to create a larger storage space. He didn’t understand why the little king would do such a thing, and Umbric dreaded finding out what the boy wanted for it.

Atynar, however, looked visibly relieved. “Good,” he murmured, taking several gulps from his glass. 

_It’s not good. It is another favor waiting to be paid with ren’dorei blood._

Umbric returned to his meal, cutting small pieces and chewing slowly. There were carrots tonight, and while he generally liked them they weren’t sitting well in his stomach. He thought perhaps they would taste better later, cold and a little more crisp. Beside him, Atynar continued drinking, filling up his glass again, as though wanting for something to do. 

Or putting off the deliverance of unpleasant news. 

“Yes?” The magister raised an eyebrow. He hoped it wasn’t the Dawnbreezes again. Umbric didn’t consider himself a vindictive man, but he had not returned to their bakery after their complaint in the wake of the anniversary. Whenever he felt the urge for a pastry now he simply conjured one.

Atynar shifted uncomfortably. “Magister,” he began. “I mean no offense, and I hope you understand.” He toyed with his glass, eyes focused firmly on the far end of the table. “Some of us were assigned with you in Xibala. And we… We couldn’t help but notice, ah…”

Both of Umbric’s eyes were now making acquaintance with his hairline. “Yes?” he said again. 

“It’s been making the rounds that you have some sort of… _arrangement,_ with a sin’dorei.” What Atynar was stepping around bordered on rude, commenting on his superior’s personal life, and he knew it. He took another drink and swallowed before continuing. “A sin’dorei who works for SI:7.”

Umbric was taken aback. Out of all the things Atynar could have said, he wasn’t expecting this. “A little above SI:7,” he said carefully. Whatever the relationship between Valeera and the spymaster, she was in no way his subordinate. He speared a piece of broccoli and considered it before popping it in his mouth. “I wouldn’t call the relationship an arrangement, exactly.” 

His friend’s mouth turned down at the corners a second, a little impressed. “Perhaps it could be,” he suggested quietly. 

“Excuse me?”

Fingers drummed on the scrubbed wood, a sign of anxiety. His voice dropped even lower. “They don’t respect us,” he murmured. “Just yesterday they ordered two more to Nazjatar, two more we _don't have._ They don’t understand that we aren’t an infinite resource. Perhaps, from someone with more clout…”

Umbric grit his teeth, the word a bite. _“Atynar.”_

His friend shut his mouth abruptly. 

How dare he. _How dare he._ Umbric could overlook the prying into his relationship ﹣ there were so few of them, and they’d all become quite close, it was difficult not to know each other's business ﹣ but this… Valeera was the _only_ person who didn’t want something from him. Never asked for anything outside of her mysterious assignment from Shaw, never put him or his ren’dorei in danger, never demanded he serve her without question. Even in their work together, she was careful, considerate of his mental state and exhaustion, and did not bother him more than strictly necessary. She took an interest in his personal projects, even if she didn’t particularly understand them ﹣ took an interest in _him._ Not as a magister, nor as leader of the ren’dorei, but as _Umbric._ As a person. 

_She pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong. She goes through your things, she traverses your wards without your permission._

She was a spy. Of course she had looked into him. She probably had an entire file on him tucked away somewhere, just as he was sure Shaw did. And hadn’t he also more than once peeked into her field pack, curious as to the secrets she hid there? 

_Atynar has a point. Valeera holds a much higher position than your own. She may be more powerful than Shaw, and she has the little king’s ear. A concerned word in her own would reach him soon enough._

He had no idea as to the relationship between Valeera and the High King. 

_She calls him by his first name._

Umbric grimaced. He didn’t know what that meant. In every other way, Valeera was very much like the elves with whom he’d worked and been raised in Silvermoon. Distant, relying on titles and formality when forced to acknowledge a person at all. Even the spymaster, with whom Umbric considered her close, she referred to by his family name. 

_She calls you by your given name too, and she's_ _fucking you._

His gut churned. Anduin Wrynn was a child. Valeera wouldn’t have any interest in him.

 _If she’s fucking you both, your chances are better. Isn’t that how things were always done in Silvermoon?_ _Wouldn’t things have gone your way if you’d slept with the Grand Magister? That’s how_ ** _he_** _rose to power, after all._

The fork clinked as he put it down, no longer hungry. “Pack this up for me, please,” he muttered, pushing the plate away. 

Atynar looked alarmed. “Sir, I didn’t mean to insult you,” he said hurriedly. 

“You didn’t.” He had, but Umbric had delivered many lies to his people since their banishment from Silvermoon. What was one more, and a tiny, insignificant one at that? “It’s been a long day; I overestimated my own energy. I think I’ll retire early.”

He didn’t look at the bill as he paid it. Nicanor and Shani didn’t charge much, and he suspected dully that he overpaid by at least three times the amount. They all were, since the announcement. Whatever the Wards didn’t use for their family would go right back to the inn. It benefited them all. 

The ren’dorei nodded in acknowledgement as he passed, and he did so back. He’d known the names of every one of them when he’d sat down but as he left, he couldn’t recall a single face. 

* * *

_He woke the same way he’d fallen asleep: slowly, and then all at once. At first glance nothing was wrong. Silvermoon’s marble columns gleamed in the early morning light, the noise coming from its streets busy and familiar. Birds flitted through the air, and little rabbits from the gardens hopped about on their way, sniffing for edible flowers. For just a moment he wasn’t sure what had woken him at all. He threw the sheets off, swung his legs over the side of his bed. The floor was cold on his bare feet_ ﹣ _hadn’t there been a rug here before? An expensive one, from the time of Dath’Remar, dark crimson and soft._

_Maybe he was misremembering._

_Umbric padded across the room, threw open the wide double doors to his balcony. Quel’Thalas’s gold-orange leaves shimmered in the sun, the air sweet with the scents of new flowers and arcane. There was a sunfruit tree overhanging the end of the terrace, and the large, fat fruit called to him. He’d spent many a soft morning here, gorging himself on fruit until he felt sick, removed from the Magisterium and Silvermoon for a few precious moments until he dressed and started his day._

_The sunfruit was heavy in his hand, its orange skin firm beneath his fingers. A pleasant smell wafted gently from the stem, where it had been broken off at picking, the tender pale flesh peeking out at him from behind the newly-created seam. He bit into it, using his sleeve to catch the sugary juice that ran down his chin, and turned his attention back to the city, to the stirring of Feth’s Way and its inhabitants. The air hummed with wakening magicks, mana buzzing in his veins._

_But something was wrong. Umbric couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The colors of the dawn were too dark, he thought, too orange. Bloody, almost. He scanned the sky, but he found no answers there._

_He wiped his mouth, the sunfruit juice almost sickly sweet, almost… Thick, and viscous. Puzzled, he glanced at his sleeve, and his eyes widened. Thick black sludge clung to the fabric where the syrup should have been. He swiped his bare fingers over his lips_ ﹣ _they came away black too._ _The fruit turned to ash in his mouth and he choked, tears gathering along his lashes. He blinked several times as he spat, and his vision blurred. Wiping his eyes, he saw the moisture was not tears at all, but the same black sludge._

_Someone screamed, and the sky above him burst._

_Umbric threw himself against the railing, watching in horror as the walls that encircled the Way crumbled, as the undead poured in. The people on the streets below were unprepared, unable to raise even a hand in defense. He screamed as the Scourge set upon them, the unearthly howls trailing him back into the house._

_The servants were dead, their simple magicks no match against a force of ghouls. Umbric blasted them with dark fire, the smell of their burning, rotting flesh scorching his nostrils. “An’da! Min’da!” He screamed for his parents_ ﹣ _their rooms weren’t far, why couldn’t he find them?_

_“Umbric!” The answering call was weak, somewhere to his left, and he wrenched the door open so hard he ripped it off its hinges. His parents were there, his mother standing guard over his bleeding father. Her face was smeared with soot, her dark hair singed. It was his father who’d called for him._

_“An’da!” Umbric fell to his feet, reaching for him, the stench of blood thick in the air. He felt sick. His father’s arm had been ripped clean off, a wad of bloodied fabric tied to the wound. “An’da, what’s happened? What’s going on?”_

_His father was weak, the light in his eyes dim. “Run,” he gasped. “As fast as you can.”_

_The tears burned as they streaked down his cheeks. “I can’t… An’da, I can’t leave_ ﹣”

_But someone had seized him by the back of his shirt, was hauling him bodily to his feet. His mother. “Umbric,” she hissed. “Run. Save yourself, we’ll be fine.”_

_If he left them, they would die._

_“Go!” He was being thrown from the room, his mother’s frantic face obscured by a layer of increasing darkness. “Get out, Umbric! While you still can!”_

_But outside was worse. The gentle light of dawn had been replaced by darkness and fire, skeletons chasing screaming elves with bloodied claws. Abominations_ ﹣ _undead and eldritch_ ﹣ _stormed the streets, and in the distance came the pounding of Amani war drums._

_“Loranis!” He tore through the Bazaar, wildly searching for a familiar face. He found none. “Mendaci! Nazalia!” He stumbled over the growing piles of bodies, the streets clogging with dead and ash. A child, pale and bloodied, watched him run, her spine twisted unnaturally, eyes unseeing._

_All at once he faltered, doubling over as though shot. The fire sputtered at his fingers, flickering briefly into existence before gutting out in a haze of black smoke. There was sludge in his veins, the mana there tainted with something evil and dead. He gulped great lungfuls of dirty, rotting air but it didn’t help. Nothing helped. Umbric turned his eyes skyward, searching for the pulsing, holy pillar of light in the north but it wasn’t there. He broke out in a cold sweat, his vision narrowing until there was nothing but black haze. He couldn’t even hear the screams. He thought he might be going into shock._

_The Sunwell had gone out._

**_I can help you._ **

_Nicanor stood there, a book filled with strange calculations and code and magics in his hands. It radiated eerie, dark energy, and Nicanor held it out as though afraid._

**_I can help you. Just give in._ **

_The voice didn’t belong to Nicanor. Umbric didn’t know whose it was. He reached for the book, its aura oozing from the tattered pages into his hand, wrapping his arm in a faintly disturbing glow. Burrowing into his skin and tainting the brackish mana that remained. He keened, long and low in his throat, his heart throbbing in his chest. He was simultaneously flooded with pure, refreshing oxygen and still unable to breathe. There were arms around him, someone shouting his name. A pike clattering the floor, Mendaci’s thick, strong hands smoothing over his face._

_“Umbric!” someone cried. “Umbric!”_

**_It’s alright. Let go._ **

_Rommath stood before him, eyeing the complicated crystalline structure on the table. Duskwalker and Rudgrinne checking its runes, poking at the Wards’ spellwork. Erindae Firestrider at Rommath’s right hand, clutching a notepad to her chest, her unease tangible and mixing with his own._

_“What are you doing?” Rommath demanded._

**_Show them._ **

_The air crackled around them, the residual Light from the priesthood upstairs reacting violently to the energies seeping from the crystal. Duskwalker and Rugrinne, hands decorated with matching runes, stretching their slim fingers and tearing into the fabric of reality itself, the hissing emitted from the overworked symbols drowned out by the horrifying and absolute silence that befell them all. The Grand Magister was screaming, face contorted with terror, his apprentice throwing up an arcane shield, pale pink and fragile against the encroaching darkness._

**_All ignorant people fear the Void._ **

_All ignorant people fear the Void, he thought, in the bright white cobblestone streets of Stormwind. Something wasn’t right. Someone was screaming._

_Not again. Not again! The walls crumpled and the streets erupted, the screaming was coming from them. From him. People lay broken and bleeding amongst the stones, exactly as they had in Silvermoon. He heard the sharp marching of plate-covered feet._

_Mendaci and Nazalia, their skin pale as milk, withered and near Wretched and tendrils eating their way through their innards. Power they couldn’t contain. Loranis, beaten and bound, the whispers emanating from him so loudly that Umbric had to step away lest they corrupt him too. Vazun, rotting in the tainted Stormwindian sun, his wounds awash with sand and tiny scavenging critters._

_He ran._

_He ran and ran and ran, but he couldn't escape them. Faceless Ones, their fingerless appendages snatching unsuspecting ren’dorei from the streets, elves flopping brokenly from thick fists. Kelain, weakly spitting blood and shattered teeth. Beneath a blight wagon Celosel shuddered, poison spiderwebbing over her skin. Siege weapons hurled bombs over the city gates, clouds of blight exploding in their wake. He saw Crystalynn and Falania fall, Mastus attempting in vain to shield them from the worst of the fallout. When the smoke cleared, the shrapnel had sliced him beyond recognition, a bloodied hunk of meat lying prone over two cadavers. A closed casket flashed in Umbric’s mind, unable to be opened before going up in flames._

_“Help! Someone help!” He scrambled for the Keep, hopping over bodies along the way. Ren’dorei, drowned in the canals, their black ichor blood leaking from the fractures in their skin. Necks broken, stab wounds, blood pooling beneath bashed in skulls. Violet magics fizzling in dying hands, the words gurgling in Savia’s slashed throat._

_Shani shrieking on the shores of Olivia’s Pond, dragging Nicanor’s lifeless form from the dark, unforgiving waters. Her abdomen was soaked with black blood, running down her legs, staining her husband’s skin. Keira, smacked away when she tried to help, calling the Shadow._

_“Shani! Shani, you have to stop!”_

_“Don’t touch me!” Shani screamed. “Nicanor, save Nicanor!” She seized Keira’s hands and smacked them to her husband’s chest. “Save my husband!”_

_“Shani, he’s not… What about you?”_

_“Don’t_ **_touch_ ** _me!” Between the baby and her husband, she’d already accepted the tiny soul was lost. It was easier, having never known it, having never held it in her arms, never heard its cries._

_Keira called after him as Umbric ran past. Alleria, he had to find Alleria. “You were supposed to protect us! The Alliance was supposed to save us, Umbric!”_

_The Alliance was never going to save them. The Alliance had allowed this to happen, just as they'd allowed the Scourge to march on Quel'Thalas. Turalyon and Shaw and the High King were safe from the butchery in Stormwind Keep, laughing and celebrating_ ﹣

  
  
  


He woke to screaming. Something clutched at him, wrapped around his arms and legs, pinning him to the bed. He felt suffocated, and dimly he realized it was the pillow, he was trying to breathe through his pillow. 

There was no one there with him. The blankets fought him as he struggled but they were just _fabric._ Desperately he tried to calm his racing heart, visions of black magics dancing behind his eyelids. Forcibly ripping the Light from the lord commander’s bones, the naaru bond disintegrating and going out, Turalyon crashing to the floor amongst shattered armor. Shaw, pinned to the wall by his many knives, entrails spilling from his opened belly. Standing over Anduin, ripping out hanks of perfect golden hair, drops of red beading from his ruined scalp﹣

“Stop.”

Orcs and undead razing the city, setting fire to houses and butchering the people. Alliance soldiers saving only the humans, drawing their swords against the might of one hundred and fourteen ren’dorei. The wave of Void magics, the tentacles erupting from one hundred and fourteen furious bodies, seizing soldiers by the handful, cracking them in two before throwing them, their plate suits the only things holding their mangled remains. Bones snapping in a sweet, horrifying cacophony﹣

_“Stop.”_

Six dozen elves in a heap, thrown out like so much trash. Al’ar and the Light had abandoned them, the Void wouldn’t touch them. Mathias Shaw and his masked SI:7 assassins, working in tandem ﹣ “heave, ho!” ﹣ and tossing more bodies into the pile. Even the fel was gone, drained from them so many years ago, ousted by the Void which no longer wanted them. “Heave, ho!” Skulls thudding together as a new body fell, and Greymane, lip curled in disgust, stepping forward with a torch﹣

“Leave me alone!” 

_You were supposed to protect them._

“Go away!”

_Your numbers dwindle every day. You have no power and no authority. You are a joke._

“Shut up, shut up!” 

Umbric scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to force the dreams from his vision. The blankets pulled at him uncomfortably, but they were only blankets. _Only blankets._ No one was holding him down, nothing was pinning him﹣

“Umbric! _Umbric!”_

He whirled, dark magic crackling in his fists. A slender hand smacked against him, the thin fingers iron shackles against his cold flesh. He fought, the being more delicate than the eldritch abominations he’d faced before but quicker. The limbs against him, digging into his thighs and his chest, and someone was yelling. 

“Wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”

Something brushed over his face, sweet-smelling and soft. He knew that smell. 

Blonde hair, slipping like silk between his fingers, spread over his pillows like molten gold in the morning light. Falling into brilliant green eyes on a milky heart-shaped face with full, cupid’s bow lips… 

_Valeera._

Umbric forced himself to breathe. Once, twice. He could hardly hear over the blood pounding in his ears. Valeera’s weight on top of him was reassuring, the one solid thing tethering him to this reality as the Void ebbed, retreating back to the recesses of his mind. 

“It’s not real,” Valeera was saying. “Whatever you saw, it’s not real.” 

It wasn’t real it wasn’t real it wasn’t real. 

Carefully she let go of his wrists, hovering as though afraid he’d lose himself again. She placed both hands on his shoulders, stroked circles into his skin with her thumbs. Another tether, another thing that was real. 

Her brows were furrowed, and the worry in her face chased away the last wisps of nightmare still clinging desperately to his waking self. “You had a nightmare,” she said slowly. “A bad one.”

He nodded dumbly. “A bad one,” he repeated. He hated that Valeera had to see him like this. 

Very gently, she cupped his cheek with one hand and he leaned into it. The nightmares were always cold when they touched him, slimy and hard, but Valeera wasn’t. She was warm and soft and smooth, breathing quickened from their struggle. Ringing her arms were angry red lines that hadn’t been there when they’d gone to bed, and slowly he reached up to touch one. 

Those weren’t the types of marks he liked to leave on her. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, eyes downcast. 

“It’s fine.” And Valeera had many versions of _It’s fine,_ but this one meant _You couldn’t control it, don't be upset, and I’m not angry._ He felt horrible anyway. Perhaps it wasn’t realistic, to expect to control something as powerful as the Void while he was asleep. It was difficult enough to contain it while he was awake. But he didn’t often have nightmares like this, the kind that caused the Void to erupt from his sleeping body, to seize whatever was nearest in the attempt to defend himself from whatever terrors it conjured. 

“Alright?” And this one meant _Are they gone? Is your vision clear? Is the Void still here?_

“Yeah... I’m awake now.” 

She shifted on top of him, her knee no longer pressing into his hip. It hurt, and he found he didn’t want her to leave.

“Don’t.” 

“What?”

“Just.” He pulled her down, wrapping his arms around her slender frame. Her elbows jabbed at him until she was settled but he didn’t care. The little stabs were just one more force keeping the whispers at bay, her body an anchor in the cold, dark sea of the Void. “Stay. Please. Like this.” He buried his face in her hair, inhaled. “Just for a little while.”

“This can’t be comfortable.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

“This is perfect.” 

She let him have this. After a moment, she murmured, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He didn’t. He really didn’t want to relive the Scourge, or watching his people die again and again. It had been hard enough the first time, in real life. 

After an eternity Umbric felt himself relax. Felt the rigidity leave his muscles, soft now against Valeera’s warm, firm body. It didn’t feel anymore like the world would collapse if he moved, and carefully, not quite letting himself believe it, he pressed the tips of his fingers into Valeera’s side. She was not asleep but she did not react, letting him come back to himself slowly, herself a beacon in the aberration-infested night.

“It was worse this time,” he heard himself whisper. Worse because of Shani, the precious life inside her. The fear that it would flicker out.

“I’m sorry.” She stroked down the line of his neck, smoothing the tenseness there. She did not ask him to elaborate and he didn’t want to. Didn’t think he could make himself form the words. 

The Scourge… Valeera was an elf. The Scourge was something she would understand. She had never volunteered information about what she had gone through, about her family or the friends she had lost, but _every_ elf knew pain from the Scourge. But the ren’dorei… their deaths were his fault. Maybe Shaw or Greymane or the little king had given the order, but there would be no order to give if Umbric hadn’t listened to Alleria Windrunner’s honeyed words, hadn’t believed her that the Alliance would help them.

Help _her_ maybe. Her husband was the Lord Commander of the Alliance, Lightforged, a legendary hero. They couldn’t have one without the other. Umbric and his people were outcasts, a liability and unknown. 

Valeera let him shift them, let him roll them over and curl around her. Sometimes she held him after a bad night, fitting her smaller body over his and rubbing circles into his skin, but he didn’t need that right now. He needed something to cling to, had to reach for something on his own to keep him moored in reality. 

“Please,” he’d told her that first time, “I need this. Sometimes… sometimes I need this.” 

He’d never had anyone to hold before. Not since his exile, and not for a long time before that. 

She used one foot to kick the covers back up, not wanting to break the circle he’d made of his arms. Carefully, she moved one of his hands and placed it flat on her chest, just over her heart, and the soothing _ba-bump… ba-bump… ba-bump_ beneath his palm soothed him. Helped him breathe more easily. He rested his head against the back of hers, huffing the sweet, slightly floral scent of her hair. 

When he closed his eyes again, all he saw was black. 

* * *

Umbric was alone when he woke again, but reaching out a hand found the space where Valeera had been still warm. Her clothes were still scattered about on the floor, and when he saw them he relaxed. Laid back down. She hadn’t left, not yet. 

After some time he became aware of noise downstairs, and the gentle smells of cooking food. Valeera probably wasn’t coming back to bed. For a moment Umbric lay there, a smile playing on his lips at the sheer domesticity of it all. He’d had people cook for him before ﹣ he’d had servants in Silvermoon, and Elestrae and Shani and Atynar and others in exile. His meals ﹣ his non-conjured meals ﹣ had been brought to him every day at dawn, noon, and dusk in Xibala; but this didn’t feel like that. The ren’dorei were a family. They had to be, to survive, but… Valeera wasn’t obligated to him like they were. Valeera wasn’t here with him, right now, for any other reason than because she cared for him. Maybe… maybe she even loved him. 

She raised an eyebrow at him as he slipped down the spiral staircase, still tying the sash to his dressing gown. She thought house robes pretentious ﹣ she thought most of his clothes pretentious, to be fair. “How’d you sleep?” she called softly. She was dressed in the tunic he’d discarded last night, the cut falling just past the swell of her bottom. She wasn’t that much smaller than he was, not really. 

“Better.” He padded into the little kitchenette, where Valeera had some eggs cooking in a pan, plain. The remains of the chicken he’d bought for dinner at Diel Thalas and hadn’t eaten, now reheated and sitting prettily on the spindly table at which he rarely sat. Under a covered dish were several slices of toasted bread, unbuttered. “You did all this?”

“You sound surprised.” She worked with none of the flourish he’d seen on his childhood cooks or even Atynar and Shani ﹣ quickly, efficiently. The eggs she separated onto two plates, and dumped a generous amount of his miniscule supply of cooking spices to her own on the left. She placed the spice containers on the table beside the two plates. “Cooking isn’t difficult.” She sat, and he followed her cue.

“I’ve never cooked anything before,” he admitted. Until his exile, he’d never thought at all about how the food made it onto his plate.

“Some of us have been cooking our own meals since we were nine.” She smiled at him wryly.

Nine. So young, especially for an elf. Practically an infant. 

“You live in a castle.” He carefully tapped pepper, once, over his plate. Mixed it in. 

“I didn’t always.” 

_How did she end up in Stormwind Keep?_

“I suppose,” he murmured, popping a bit of egg in his mouth, chewing delicately and swallowing, “it would not surprise you to learn I grew up in Feth’s Way.”

“Did you?” She seemed not at all shocked that he’d come from one of Silvermoon’s most posh residential suburbs. Perhaps it was in his official dossier. A smirk played along her lips, and after a moment she offered, “I was born in the Court of the Sun.”

He started. Of all places... High-ranking noble families and minor royalty and wealthy government officials lived in the Court of the Sun, at least before the Scourge. And Valeera’s name was _Sanguinar…_ The late Lord Sanguinar had thrown his lot in with Prince Kael’thas, had funded the excursion to the Outland and the Sunfury forces he’d taken with. Had worked with the High Astromancer Solarian, if not directly than at least funding her research into the Void. Without the astromancer, Umbric didn’t know where his ren’dorei would be. 

The House was dead, and as far as he knew, the lord hadn’t any living children at the time of his demise. 

“What’s a sin’dorei like you doing in a place like Stormwind?” Valeera’s beautiful emerald eyes hadn’t happened overnight. Mages and priests and those who drew more forcefully on the Sunwell had seen a rapid change, greedily drinking in the fel provided by Kael’thas’s illicit crystals. Anything to stave off the crippling hunger for mana. But people like Valeera, those who weren’t magically inclined and whose abilities were limited to soft shining magelights ﹣ their change happened more gradually. An unconscious absorption of the fel and its chaotic energies, seeping unwillingly into skin and hair and manifesting in the sickly green of glowing irises. She must have lived in Quel’Thalas a long time, to have eyes like that. The high elves who had left, those who hadn’t followed Kael’thas, had never used the fel, after all. Their eyes still shone a clear, radiant sky blue. 

Valeera rolled her tongue in her mouth before ducking her head, reaching for toast and smearing a soft marmalade over it. Umbric had seen that tic before. It meant she didn’t like the question, and was considering her answer carefully. 

“I was granted amnesty by the previous king,” she said after several moments. “I served him, and now I serve King Anduin.” 

_What did you do?_ sat on the tip of his tongue and he bit it back. This was the most information Valeera had ever given him, and he would not risk offending her by prying more than he already had. 

_Because you don’t want to know. Because it sounds like she fucked the old king, like she’s fucking the little lion too. That’s how you get ahead in this world when nothing else works._

Umbric lowered his eyes. Stabbed his egg with a little more force than necessary. 

_What do you have to lose by asking her to whisper in the boy king’s ear? Are you going to fuck him yourself?_

He blanched. Anduin Wrynn was a _child._

_Your people are dying, and no one cares. No one wants to listen to some unknown magister from Silvermoon. Valeera will be able to secure the protection you need._

“Are you alright?” Valeera was looking at him; he realized he’d stopped eating. 

“I’m fine,” he lied, gesturing to the plates between them. “It’s just… difficult, in the morning.” 

There was a difference between lying by omission and outright deceit. Umbric liked to consider himself a man who did a lot of the former and very little of the latter. He’d always done his best to be truthful with Valeera, in as much as he was able. His disgruntlement with the Alliance was no carefully guarded secret ﹣ he voiced it at every council meeting, loudly. He danced around his research, the things that didn’t actually concern her and concepts she wouldn’t understand. But he’d never been intentionally dishonest with her. 

The words were bitter in his mouth but he couldn’t take them back now.

Valeera frowned but said nothing, placing her fork carefully to the side and standing. He watched her as she dug out his kettle ﹣ one of the few kitchen items he did use semi-regularly ﹣ and tea from the polished tin in the cabinet. Soon the air was filled with the peppery sharp scent of ginger, and then she was depositing a steaming cup before him. Ginger tea was a Lightsend, he’d learned, and he’d found that out from her. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, and she waved her hand dismissively. 

He would go to Alleria. Alleria was a known entity in good standing with Stormwind and the Alliance, and technically his superior. 

_Alleria ran from Quel’Thalas years ago to be with her human lover. She’s unreliable._

Alleria would be able to bring his concerns before the war council ﹣ in the inner sanctum in which even he wasn’t allowed ﹣ and explain. She would understand. She _knew._ She was ren’dorei now too.

_Where was Alleria when the Horde attacked Stromgarde, and Savia and Mastus died? Where was Alleria when Rauvir and Zarra drowned? Where was Alleria during the Battle of fucking Dazar’alor? Alleria does not care about you. She never sat by anyone’s bedside as they breathed their last breath, never informed the distraught families and friends. Never ordered any funeral rites or lit the pyres aflame. Alleria cannot even properly receive the Void, her very insides saturated with Light by her blessed husband. She can never understand._

Alleria had found them in the Ghostlands. Alleria had _rescued_ them, one hundred and fifty-two souls. 

_And she let thirty-eight of them die._

“Umbric?” A hand covered his own, and the whispers stopped. “Hey.” Valeera’s voice was quiet. “Don’t get stuck in your head.” 

“I’m not, I’m just… thinking.”

She chewed her lip, troubled. “What about?” Her arm was very straight, laid across the table. Tying them together. 

_Atynar’s right,_ he thought reluctantly. Shifting uncomfortably, he muttered, “The old worgen is demanding I sail to Nazjatar. He would rather I send him twenty-four battlemages, but he doesn’t understand that we just don’t have that many.” Umbric had planned to pull Whisper and Shade from the team he’d given Shaw. They were just sitting in the SI:7 compound and not on assignment, and they would surely be safer with him than wherever Shaw wanted them to send them.

He wasn’t looking forward to the resulting conversation.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Valeera roll her own. “The old worgen doesn’t understand the meaning of conservative strategy. He sees a power like yours as a ticking time bomb, best thrown at the enemy before it goes off in his face. He can’t comprehend that he has the ability to pull the trigger when needed.” She withdrew her hand to pick up her coffee, to bring it to her lips. 

It had been a long time since he’d drunk coffee. His stomach didn’t like it anymore.

“Take what he says with a grain of salt,” she advised. Huffed a laugh. “Or ignore him. I usually do.” 

“I don’t have the luxury of ignoring him,” Umbric grumbled darkly. 

Valeera cocked her head. “The way I see it, the only person you’re truly accountable to is the High King.”

That was funny. To get to the High King he had to first go through the likes of Commander Wyrmbane, Spymaster Shaw, Lady Alleria, Lord Commander Turalyon… A lot more people with far more powerful and important titles than his own. In Silvermoon, the only title higher than Magister was Archmage, if one was lucky enough to study in Dalaran and receive it, and after that, Grand Magister. Magister Umbric had had far more sway back in Silvermoon than he could ever hope to cultivate here in Stormwind. 

“You heard what the High King thinks,” he said tightly into his tea. “It’s not as if I’m a member of his inner circle, able to walk right up to him and speak my mind.” 

Across from him, Valeera had gone very still. Her eyes bore into his own. Not even three days ago she had slipped into the council room as everyone else filed out, pulled up a chair on the king’s righthand side, and done just that, about whatever it meant to repeal the Prestor Edict. Umbric shouldn’t have been there, but he had been, and Valeera had seen him. “I see.” She placed the coffee cup back on the table. “And you’re under the impression that I do?”

“Don’t you?” It came out harsher than he’d intended, and he winced. 

There was a sharp look in her eye now, and her lips were pressed together in a thin line. Finally, she said slowly, “And if I did?”

A beat. 

“What are you asking me, Umbric?”

This had been a mistake. 

“I see you, Valeera, in those meetings. I know you hear my concerns.” 

“It’s not for me to get involved.” 

“Maybe you should!” He couldn’t stop himself, the words churning in his gut and gushing forth like vomit. “You’re an elf too, Valeera. The loss of an elven life ﹣ _any_ elven life ﹣ has to weigh on you as heavily as it does me.”

The woman was sitting so still in her chair he couldn’t even see her breathe. “Perhaps,” she murmured, deadly quiet, “the leader should not sit so stoic when those lives are up for consideration.” 

Flashes of the Void ﹣ tentacles erupting from his clenched fists, aura alight, snatching the boy king and flinging him across the room, ripping the spymaster’s words and entire throat out through his treacherous mouth; bringing the sky down and dampening the Light the paladin guards called forth in defense ﹣ flitted through his mind, stirred by the fear and anxiety in his heart. The anger he felt at those meetings, the _fury_ ﹣ if he didn’t control it, it would eat him alive, and everyone else too. 

_“You cannot control the Void!”_ Rommath had once shouted at him. _“You will be its host, not its wielder!”_

The illustrious Grand Magister hadn’t exactly been wrong. 

“One word from you,” Umbric growled, “and the ren’dorei would be _safe_ ﹣”

“Is that all I am?” The chair scraped against the floor as Valeera pushed back from the table. “Is that the reason you started fucking me?”

Speaking had been a mistake. Asking for something so important, when he’d never asked her for anything at all, was a mistake. 

“No.” He looked at her sharply and she met his gaze. The determined set of her jaw told him she was clenching her teeth very, very hard. _“No,”_ he said again, with more force. 

The very air was tense, as Valeera leaned forward. For the briefest moment he imagined he could see what everyone else saw, the hard lines of her face, the furrow of her brows, before she pressed a poisoned dagger to their throats like a kiss. He thought if he opened his mouth again, the fragile peace his denial had established would snap. 

But she did not reach for him, instead wrapping her slim fingers around the handle of her coffee cup, watching him as she drank. And when it was empty she placed it back down, with a soft _thunk_ on the wood, and pushed away again. This time she stood, and Umbric heard her as she crossed behind him, as she climbed the spiral staircase to his bedroom. The remains of their uneaten breakfast grew cold as Umbric sat there, and he wasn’t sure if he should go after her and explain or stay silent. 

_She never loved you. Her heart belongs to little King Anduin, and you forced her hand._

He heard her pad back downstairs in socked feet, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her ﹣ she’d pulled on the trousers that until moments ago lay strewn on his bedroom floor, and her socks and now she was jamming her feet hastily into the boots sitting patiently by the door. It was an elven thing, he thought dimly, to remove shoes in one’s home. Perhaps her exit wouldn’t be quite as heartrending without the moments she took there, tying the laces with trembling fingers. He supposed a human would have just stormed right out, and left him in the reverberation of the slamming door. 

She left quietly, and somehow that hurt more than if she’d screamed at him. The wards in his doorway rippled as she passed through, her hair frizzing in the static. She hadn’t activated the little gnomish device as she always did, and perhaps she’d never really needed it to _leave_ the flat ﹣ the wards weren’t necessarily to prevent that, after all ﹣ but the action, that minor slip, made his breath catch in his throat. The door closed with a soft _snick_ and then she was gone.

 _She went back to him. She’ll tell him you’re unhappy, that you whined about the unfairness of life, and retaliation will be swift. You won’t be able to take your two rogues to Nazjatar_ ﹣ _this time they’ll get their dozen mages, no matter who it has to be._

The eggs had congealed on his plate, slimy, and his tea had gone cold. He didn’t want them anymore. After several minutes, he gathered the plates, his and Valeera’s, and the cups and silverware, and placed them clinking in the sink. The untouched food went in the trash. He wasn’t going to reheat it again. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been reading my other works, you'll notice that I use both "magics" and "magicks" and that's not by accident. "Magics" with no k is to refer to similar schools of magic (like everything a priest does would be classified as "magics" because they all use the Light), while I use "magicks" with the k to group different schools together (mages use different magicks, and so do shamans, and necromancers; and if you're talking about druid magic and warlock magic in the same sentence they would use magicks). I used both in this chapter, and I think the others as well, and while sometimes my chapters need a bit of proofreading, I wanted y'all to know that's not an error.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more time he spends in Nazjatar, the worse Umbric feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Malanore_ is a Thalassian word that means "outsider, traveler, stranger." You hear it a lot from belf NPCs, who are most likely calling you "traveler." The velfs use the word for its meaning of "outsider," and it applies to everyone but them.

Nazjatar, Umbric decided, was his favorite place that the Alliance had sent him. Though the place stank of fish and salt and there were murderous naga skulking about every corner, it was strangely nostalgic. The old ruins reminded him of the more ancient bits of architecture in Silvermoon’s sanctums, particularly the Magisters’ Terrace, where he had been lucky enough to briefly study before it had been destroyed; and the very air was alive with _magic._ Queen Azshara was the most powerful sorceress on Azeroth and her touch was everywhere. Leaning against one of Nazjatar’s numerous crumbling columns, or walking barefoot across the age old floors of dwellings unseen since the time of the Sundering, mana tingled along his skin and seeped into his wearied muscles. 

Perhaps he should have acquiesced the old worgen’s request, and sent every single ren’dorei alive here. If only to replenish the mana they still so desperately craved.

Greymane, however, was not nearly as pleased with Nazjatar as Umbric, nor was he very happy to see Umbric himself, Shade and Whisper in tow.

“Who are they?” he’d demanded, taking in their dark leathers and the daggers at their waists. 

“You asked for more ren’dorei,” Umbric replied curtly. There had been a mage portal constructed so he hadn’t been forced to take a ship or ﹣ Void forbid ﹣ tear a hole in reality himself, but he was still on edge from the terse conversation he’d had with Mathias Shaw in order to requisition his own rogues back to him. Atynar would take their place in Stormwind, in addition to his own assignments, and that meant three times the tears in reality and three times as little sleep. Umbric hoped the man could hold his own until he returned.

“I asked for _battlemages.”_ The older king appraised the women with a critical eye, as though they were prized livestock and not actual people. They wore their long hair tied back and dressed so similarly ﹣ even their makeup was the same ﹣ that they appeared nearly twins, though Umbric didn’t think they were related at all. They’d been doing reconnaissance for the ren’dorei since their banishment, and possibly even before. He didn’t even know their real names. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

The women regarded the old worgen impassively and Umbric struggled to keep his own face as blank. “As saturated as Nazjatar is, having agents who are not dependent on magic is an asset, your majesty. With a word, Azshara could flood the entire area and cause your mages to go into shock, rendering them and anyone relying on them easy pickings for the naga.”

“More than the mages, if she brings those walls crashing down.”

Umbric shook his head. “I didn’t mean flood with water, sir. With magic.” Before the Scourge, very powerful elven sorcerers had been able to unleash veritable waves of mana on unsuspecting enemies, overloading their foes’ own reserves and rendering them catatonic. The fel could do the same thing, and the Void also possessed that ability. No elf had been able to summon that much raw mana since the fall of the Sunwell, but Queen Azshara was not dependent on the Well, and she’d had many more eons of practice. 

A bushy grey eyebrow made its way up Greymane’s forehead. “Like a manabomb?” he asked, slightly incredulous. 

“You could liken it to that. Such an action only affects mana users, and it wouldn’t explode, but the effects would be no less devastating.” 

Doubt crisscrossed the man’s features. Umbric didn’t blame him for his skepticism ﹣ he didn’t think any human alive could harness mana the way elves could, even the veritable Jaina Proudmoore. Human mages, and elves now too, relied on hard schools to work their magicks: arcane, frost, fire. Without the inert power present in those elements, their own mana wasn’t sufficient enough to cause the world-shattering damage for which they were known. Even Grand Magister Rommath, the most powerful mage Umbric knew, wasn’t able to channel pure mana as a force of destruction. 

At any rate, the casual revelation had gotten Greymane off his back about his rogues, at least for now, and they were dismissed. 

He found Haalie Millionia, who through sheer force of prickly irritability had been awarded her own living quarters away from everyone else. She’d commandeered what looked to once have been a family home, and had furnished it with surprisingly stocky salvage. The table wobbled only slightly and all of the bookcases were intact, though their contents were long since disintegrated. 

“Haalie.” He inclined his head by way of greeting, and the shadowmage looked up. Returned the gesture with one of her own, barely a few degrees more. Haalie had always been very polite to him; she must be in a foul temper to not bend at the waist as she usually did. 

“I see they’ve finally dragged you to this watery hell, magister.”

“That they have.” They spoke Thalassian, which was easier and less likely to be overheard. Common was full of harsh, throaty sounds and consonants so sharp they could be heard smacking together rooms away, but Thalassian was a softer language, with rounded vowels and quiet tones. It also held about four different layers of formality and nuance that was absent in Common, which made it much easier to discern the speaker’s true feelings, in Umbric’s opinion. The contempt lacing their words would have been undetectable in Common's inferior register.

Haalie made some mark upon her parchment and carefully set it aside. It looked to be a map, though Umbric knew not where of. Her mapmaking skills were one of the reasons he’d decided to comply with her volunteering to come. It also helped that she was fluent in Old Darnassian, which was the common language of the truly ancient spellbooks in Silvermoon and magiccraft as a whole, and likely much closer to the spoken language of the naga than Darnassian in its present form. He’d hoped her skills would keep her out of the line of fire, make her too valuable to sacrifice for a shock attack.

She scrubbed both hands over her face and through her long, curly hair, her skin paler than he remembered. “I understand that I signed up for this, magister. I do. But these malanore﹣”

Umbric held up a hand to shush her. “I know.” She looked awful, like she hadn’t had a moment to herself in days. He felt his stomach roil, guilt that he’d sent her alone, knowing what they expected from every ren’dorei, beginning to eat at him. “When was the last time you slept?” he asked gently. 

Sleep was so important. Without it, the whispers that plagued every one of them held more sway, their words like honey to the angry and downtrodden, increasingly difficult to resist. 

Haalie let out a short bark of a laugh. “I might have gotten twenty minutes last night.” 

“And the night before?”

She didn't look at him. “I don’t remember.” 

He cringed internally. He’d had days like that, and they’d been awful. “Go,” he ordered quietly, waving in the general direction of what looked like her bed, though he couldn’t be sure since every available surface was covered in waterlogged scrolls and crisp parchment. “Whatever you’re working on, stop.”

It seemed the exhaustion hadn’t completely robbed her of the manners, because she stopped herself rolling her eyes at him. “This is Kal’methir,” she said tiredly, sweeping a hand over her half-finished map. “They asked me to check the authenticity of some old kaldorei's memory of the place. It wasn’t very good; I had to redraw it.” 

“Kal’methir will still be here when you wake up.”

“So will Greymane and his demands,” the shadowmage muttered. “The Grand Admiral’s here now too. She asked me to cobble together a map from preliminary scouting reports, so she can start looking for some ship’s captain or other.” 

“I will handle the old worgen and the Grand Admiral.” He made to reach for the map and was smacked away. 

“No one touches this but me,” Haalie growled. “Not until it’s done. I don’t trust any of you not to ruin it.” The downturn of her lips suggested she didn’t trust anyone not to ruin it upon completion either, but by then it would be quite literally out of her hands. 

Her fingers flexed against his, and she drew them back as if burned. Umbric knew those twitches, when the Void started to take hold against one’s will. Starting feeding visions of terrible things, whispers growing louder, more insistent.

“As your superior, I am ordering you to get some sleep,” he said firmly. “If they truly need this map before you wake, someone else can finish it.” 

Haalie wrinkled her nose. “So I can be stuck fixing it? No, thank you.” But she did get up, swept her hair away from her face. Gathered it all into a messy topknot. “Wake me in an hour?”

“Of course.” He had no intention of doing that. 

He left her in her assigned living space, closing the door tightly behind himself. He went and found Shade and Whisper, who were standing a ways away from all the 7th Legion commotion and observing. They both bowed, from the waist and arms straight at their sides, at his approach. 

“Haalie is to be undisturbed for the rest of the day,” he murmured. “Should anyone have need of her, they are to see me.”

“Is she alright?”

“She is tired.” He didn’t have to say more. “I want one of you to take over whatever duties of hers you can. Void portals, probably.”

Whisper’s jaw clenched. She wasn’t a fan of portaling ﹣ mage or Void ﹣ at all. Umbric suspected, with her own terrible sleep schedule, that the whispers she heard inside reality’s tears frightened her, more sonorous than they should be. “Yes, sir.”

“I may need one of you to go to a place called Kal’methir. Haalie was finishing a map of it, and they’ll be asking after it soon enough.” 

Of the two of them, Shade was a little more adventurous. Lighter of her feet, and faster through the portals. Her eyes sparkled at the mention of exploring. “Yes, sir.” 

“For now, though, I’d like you to canvas this area. I want to know who’s here and what side they’re on, and who’s giving the orders. Take note of any hostile activity.” 

_Hostile activity_ meant from any side ﹣ the naga, the Horde, or their own forces.

They both bowed again. “Yes, sir.” He watched them spin smartly on their heels before marching off in different directions, melding quickly into the shadows and disappearing from view. He knew they were still there, possibly even in plain sight, but he couldn’t see them anymore. 

And then he turned away from it all, rubbing a hand over his face and suppressing the growl of frustration brewing in his chest.

* * *

Nazjatar was surprisingly quiet at night. Aside from the faint roar of rushing water from the magically-constructed walls, and the shuffling of those on watch and reporting in, there was shockingly little sound. Combined with all the magic in the air, it was almost peaceful. 

He hadn’t woken Haalie. Umbric estimated it had been nearly nine hours since he’d ordered her to her bed, and there was no telltale magelight peeking through the windows of her commandeered home to alert anyone she’d awoken. He wasn’t worried. A handful of people, including Greymane himself, had stomped up and Umbric had quietly and with authority informed them that the shadowmage was indisposed and he was overseeing her affairs. He didn’t know anything that she had been working on but the 7th Legion soldiers had been agreeable enough. Ferrying them to more dangerous locations wasn’t difficult. It was Greymane who’d proven more challenging. The old worgen would not speak to anyone but Haalie, and with Umbric in charge he was unable to demand she open her door and see to him. 

Umbric didn’t often feel powerful anymore, but he definitely had then, staring the old worgen down and telling him, “Either speak your business to me, your majesty, or return at a more opportune time.” Umbric would probably hear about it at a disciplinary meeting, but he refused to let his people be worked to death or insanity while he was around to prevent it.

Sighing, he folded an arm behind his head, staring up at the cracked ceiling. They’d given him his own crumbling ruin of a house, small but all to himself. He supposed his station warranted it, but he suspected it was mainly because no one wanted to be sleeping next to a man filled with the Void. 

Whatever the reason, he wasn’t sure he was glad for it. At least the distraction of other people would have kept him out of his head.

  
  
  


Greymane, Jes-Tereth, and Jaina Proudmoore were bent over something when he arrived that morning, a large pot of coffee and several mugs off to the side. There was no tea. Perhaps the sea air had convinced his stomach to calm because it smelled… almost nice. Tentatively Umbric poured himself a modest amount.

“No milk?” he mused. “Or sugar?”

“Drink it black like the rest of us,” the old worgen groused. “Get over here. We don’t have all day.” 

“Milk doesn’t keep on long sea voyages,” Jaina said apologetically, passing a small container from nearby her own cup. Upon inspection, it held what appeared to be sugar and Umbric spooned a generous helping into his coffee, and diluted it with water. It wouldn’t be as rich now but perhaps that was for the best. He hadn’t had coffee in years, wasn't sure if it still disagreed with him.

“There was milk in Zuldazar.”

“Do you see anything milkable here?” Greymane snapped. 

With his back turned, Umbric allowed himself one gratuitous eyeroll before sidling over to the table upon which was spread several maps, a selection of pins, and a series of tallies. Surveying it, he never thought he would have missed the spymaster’s complicated, orderly setup. At least Shaw had a single, _accurate_ map, drawn by trusted SI:7 agents and not… whatever it was Greymane was doing. 

Jes-Tereth was pointing to an area marked only by a few lines. “I’d like a team here,” she was saying.

“We don’t have eyes on it,” the old worgen grumbled. 

“What happened to the map?”

He indicated Umbric. “Ask him.” 

Umbric sipped at his coffee. It was too sweet, more sugar sludge than coffee, but he’d always been good with sugar. It was bearable. “Haalie needed sleep,” he said evenly.

“We all need sleep, magister,” Jes-Tereth remarked, eyes narrowing slightly. 

“It is especially important for the ren’dorei, to keep our sanity.”

Greymane huffed, eyes skyward. Umbric thought he heard a gruff “ _Lazy!”_

Lazy. _Lazy?_ While Greymane sat on his hairy ass, drinking fancy coffee and flicking through field reports, people like Haalie worked themselves to exhaustion, hallucinating from lack of sleep and dying from preventable mistakes. Greymane had never been in the field, never done the grunt work ﹣ and he had the _audacity_ to call Umbric’s rendorei _lazy?_

_Show him the power of the Void._

His vision blurred around the edges, the darkness creeping in. He felt the Void rippling around him, bubbling over his hands, waiting impatiently for his command. 

_He’ll be dead before he hits the ground._

Tendrils snaked out silently from his pulsating aura, the three figures before him wreathed in shallow halos of Light that shrank from his inky touch. One snatched Jaine Proudmoore, binding her hands and gagging her before she could raise a shield. One knocked the Grand Admiral aside, pinning her to the sandy ground, weapons falling with soft, harmless thuds just out of reach. The last shot for the old worgen.

_There aren’t enough 7th Legion to stop you._

The sky fell, eldritch fiends bursting forth from the myriad of tears in the fabric of reality, those miniscule fissures all around them, breathing with the life of some other world and straining to explode into this one. They set upon the older king, who transformed with a shuddering of skin and screaming of bones, but he was no match for them. His sword tumbled uselessly to the ground, snapped in two as the fiends tore into his flesh and fur.

_One less monster stealing your ren’dorei in the night._

“﹣ster Umbric? Would that be agreeable?”

Umbric blinked several times. Jaina, her thick white braid falling over one shoulder, was peering at him with large blue eyes. He thought she might have been talking to him.

“Apologies.” He sipped at his pseudo-coffee. “I’m not… quite awake yet. What did you say?”

Jaina jabbed a finger at the blank area on the map. “Perhaps the Grand Admiral could use one of your ren’dorei to begin her search. I understand you arrived with several more.”

“Two,” Greymane supplied. “He brought us two. They’re not even mages.”

“Their worth does not lie in their magical skill,” Jaina said patiently, “but in their ability to call the Void.” 

_That’s the only time the Void matters to them. When it serves their purpose._

“They won’t be going alone.” The Lord Admiral was speaking to him now. “There is a contingent of 7th Legion waiting on our order.” 

Umbric supposed it was too much to ask, to have an entire twenty-four hours free from Alliance tyranny. He only hoped Whisper wouldn’t be too angry; Shade had left on a scouting mission around Mezzamere. He hadn’t seen her since yesterday.

“That’s fine,” he said into his cup. “I’ll alert Whisper.” He’d learned long ago to be specific, or else they would pull the first ren’dorei they could find.

It took a moment for him to realize that Greymane was staring at him, nostrils flared. It would be almost comical, if it didn’t make him slightly uneasy. What had he done, to attract such a look?

“Genn,” said Jaina, “there was a report delivered early this morning by a worgen scout.”

“Yes,” the older king said faintly, disdain tainting his voice. His eyes dropped, rose back to Umbric’s face, then dropped again, and finally back to the table. “Yes, Sergey Yun was sent to assess the Ankoan need with Blademaster Okani.”

“What’s an Ankoan?” Umbric interjected.

“The Ankoan are a faction who have pledged their assistance while we work in Nazjatar,” Jes-Tereth explained.

_They give aid to some unknown peoples but not to the ren’dorei, their own sworn allies._

“Yun was given permission to invite a number of them to Mezzamere,” the old worgen was saying, pulling a crumpled piece of parchment closer to his face. “It seems there are…” He squinted. “Twenty-three of them now. And some murlocs or something, I don’t know.” He waved a dismissive hand. “They arrived with supplies. Food and armor, some herbs for medicine.”

Umbric listened as talk of these Ankoan spiraled, absorbing the information without really hearing it. They seemed to be some sort of race at odds with the naga, a surprising find this deep into the sea, and there weren’t many of them. They served as native scouts and informants, under the protection of the Alliance. 

He seethed. 

These… these _fish_ offered nothing that could not be given by human soldiers. They were not particularly skilled with magic, if what he was hearing was the extent of it. They were barely qualified as healers, and their attack power lay in brute strength and stolen weaponry. And yet _they_ commanded more respect than Umbric and his ren’dorei! Who did they think they were?

He placed his coffee cup on the table with a quiet _thunk,_ gritting his teeth. In five minutes, he heard more resources, gold, and leeway allotted to the fish people than the ren’dorei had _ever_ been given, and it made his blood boil. Even the murlocs ﹣ murlocs! ﹣ who joined them were given free run of the camp, while Haalie had been kept under constant surveillance in her requisitioned home. 

_It isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t fair._

A flash of red caught his eye. His sleeve had fallen some when he'd raised the coffee to his lips, tense in his attempt to not smash the cup against the wood and impale each broken piece of ceramic into his superiors’ eyes. A thin strip of silk, wound around his forearm, visible only if one really knew to look. 

He’d found it on his floor as he’d packed for Nazjatar, buried beneath his discarded silk pants and smallclothes. He’d ripped it from Valeera’s hair the night before, forgotten in her haste to leave the flat. Umbric thought perhaps he should have left it there, coiled neatly on his spindly table to wait for Valeera when she inevitably sauntered in to poke around his things undisturbed. But staring at it, the shock of crimson against his indigo palm… He couldn’t let it go. It was the only piece of Valeera that was his. 

He saw the old worgen glance down, saw his eyes dart in his direction ﹣ at the bit of scarlet before his sleeve fell back in place. Saw his lip curl with disgust. Umbric froze. 

Greymane could _smell_ Valeera on him.

The old king wasn’t Shaw ﹣ he had _real_ power. The boy king’s right hand, his mentor in all things. He could easily arrange for an unfortunate accident to befall Umbric ﹣ it didn’t even have to be an accident. With Greymane’s insistence that a ren’dorei accompany every troop, and naga assaulting them from all sides…

_What does it matter if the old worgen knows? What can he do?_

This wasn’t like his subtle declaration to Shaw. This wasn’t at all like standing beside Valeera and purposely reaching around her back to lay a hand on her hip. Shaw and Valeera were… if not equals then something close to it, he thought. Not so Valeera and Greymane. The man had dominion where Valeera did not. 

And Valeera wasn’t here to stare the worgen down. 

_Let him think what he wants. You’re not fucking her anymore anyway._

The realization settled in his gut like a stone. It didn’t matter what Greymane thought. It wasn’t true anymore.

* * *

Umbric tried to keep busy, and for a time it worked. There was a neverending list of things to do, dangerous places to portal troops, fish people to speak to. They were nicer, at least, than the 7th Legion. Appreciative of his skills and people, though the Void frightened them, and that kept them from bothering him too much. And despite their unnerving monstrous appearance, they had more kindness in them than Umbric had seen previously from more handsome peoples.

He looked up as a bowl of something green and crunchy was placed before him, crowded around something else deep fried a mouthwatering golden brown. Its bearer was an ankoan with seagreen scales wearing soft, saltstained robes. “What’s this?” he asked dubiously. 

“You do not eat fish,” the ankoan said. “You have to eat something.” 

Never did Umbric curse the Void’s influence more than he did in Nazjatar, with the delicious, rich aromas of fish of all types, cooked all ways ﹣ boiled, fried, braised, baked. His younger self would have rejoiced, would have piled his plate high with all the delicacies Nazjatar had to offer. Now, the fishy smell, no matter how mild, made his stomach churn. He hadn’t had a proper meal since arriving in this Voidforsaken place, not one that wasn’t conjured and full of sugar and empty calories.

“Is rissole,” the ankoan urged. “No fish oil. And seaweed chips.” 

Umbric raised an eyebrow. “What’s rissole?” It smelled like seasalt, as all the food here did, but whatever fish lingered was the smell of the one who’d prepared it. 

“From hydra.” The fish man produced a small flask, a metal thermos of 7th Legion issue and not one of the clamshell canteens he’d seen before. “Don’t know if you like this,” he admitted. 

The rissole smelled good, and the agitation in his stomach wasn’t from revulsion now but hunger. “What is it?” When he touched the container it was warm.

“Steeped kelp tea.” He pronounced the words carefully, as if they were slightly foreign to him. Perhaps they were ﹣ he had a thick accent that Umbric found hard to understand, like all the ankoan. He’d witnessed Haalie speaking a sort of Old Darnassian pidgin to them, but his magical education had never extended to learning old Highborne spellcraft and his Darnassian was poor. With the roughness of Nazja, their actual language, he didn’t think they would get far if he acted as she did. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. And then, “What do you need?”

Umbric had never seen a fish frown before, but the ankoan seemed to be doing that. “You have to eat,” he repeated, gesturing to the bowl. “Is good, not so fishy.” 

Hesitantly he reached for the food. The rissole was squishy but firm, and savoury in a way that did not bother him. Perhaps it was the sea air but he was ravenous, and the kelp was salty and a little smokey, almost like bacon without the grease. He ate with his hands ﹣ there was no silverware and he doubted the ankoan knew what that was ﹣ and even licked his fingers. 

“Is good?” The fish man seemed anxious, as if he wanted the magister’s approval. Perhaps he had never made the dish before. 

Umbric nodded, surprised with himself. “Actually, yes.” His thoughts were more clear, now that he’d finally taken in some substantial nourishment, and the mild headache that had been pounding at his temples was starting to abate. 

The ankoan stood ramrod straight before him, not saluting as a soldier would or bowing like an elf, but Umbric supposed he wouldn’t, not being descended from elves like the naga. His unblinking eyes watched him as he ate, and finally he pulled back what passed for his lips in a gruesome, somewhat terrifying smile that he had probably learned from watching them all interact. “Meal times,” he told the mage, “you find me. I make you something. No fish.”

Umbric sat a little straighter, met his gaze. Nothing was ever given for free. 

“Enizo,” the fish man said. He put his hand on his own chest and said the strange word again, and it took Umbric a moment to realize that Enizo was his name. 

“Enizo,” he repeated, nodding. “Thank you.” Whatever the fish wanted, he wasn’t asking for it now, which was almost endearing. He watched Enizo walk away, his gait strange and a little bowlegged like a murloc. Perhaps ankoan didn’t properly _walk,_ when their homes weren’t dried out by awesome displays of magical power. 

He returned to his reports, his stomach full for the first time in days.

* * *

The peace didn’t last.

He heard thirdhand that Whisper had returned ﹣ on a stretcher. The medical building was a crumbling ruin with no roof, barnacles crusting up the far wall, and packed with people. Umbric cursed himself for not bringing Elestrae or Keira; despite their importance to every operation, Umbric didn’t trust the 7th Legion medics. It would be folly to allow one of his ren’dorei to die, but… That had never stopped them before.

Whisper was at the back of the building, attended to by a paladin in dirty plate and a dwarf priest in clean robes, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“What happened?” Umbric demanded. The paladin whirled, eyes wide. He’d been tended to first, Umbric noted, his hair matted with blood but no wound beneath. 

“Sir!” The paladin saluted. “We were ambushed, sir. As we were reconvening at the rendezvous point we were jumped by the naga. Seven… maybe eight of them? A brute and several myrmidons.”

Brutes were awful, monstrous creatures, worth at least five myrmidons on their own if not stronger. Umbric had thankfully not dealt with them often; they scared the shit out of him.

“Any casualties?”

“No. Hawkins is making a report to King Greymane and the Lord Admiral, the rest of us came out of it with minor wounds.”

“Yer head wasn’t that minor,” quipped the priest, running careful hands along Whisper’s thigh. A splintered shaft lay on the ground at their feet, and a broken spearhead protruded from a gruesome and bloody wound in the rogue’s leg. The paladin gestured to her.

“She was great, sir,” he said hurriedly. “It wasn’t her fault. We could have waited a few moments for Liz ﹣ she’s our troop’s mage, sir ﹣ to get a portal up, but this one just… I don’t know what she did, but suddenly one of your void portals was there and we got everyone out, no loss of life. We would have all died without her.” 

_He doesn’t even know her name. She would have died for them and he can’t even call her by name._

“Thank you,” Umbric said tightly. “You’re dismissed.” 

He didn’t know if he was angry or not at how fast the paladin fled. 

Turning his attention to the injured woman, he saw thick black straps encircling Whisper’s arms and legs, and he questioned, “Why is she restrained?”

The dwarf jerked his thumb at the protruding spearhead. “Nearly murdered me gettin’ that out.” At Umbric’s raised eyebrows, he scoffed and said, “I’m nae touching it again. I like me head where it is and them tentacles almost took it off.” 

His temper flared. “So you’re just going to leave her like that?” 

A scowl. “I sent for a medic,” the priest said, affronted. “If she’s lucky, she’ll get tha’ shadowpriest.” 

Ren’dorei could not be healed by the Light. Every expedition was to be equipped with a shaman or druid, or a capable shadowpriest. Why were there none in this building? When Whisper was brought in there should _immediately_ have been an alternate healer available. 

Not for the first time Umbric wished he’d been blessed with the art of healing. 

“Go find someone!” he snapped. “Now!”

This wouldn’t be the first time the Alliance had left one of them to die, but Umbric would do whatever he could to be sure it would be the last. 

  
  
  


_This is why Celosel died. And Vazun. Why are you letting it happen to Whisper too?_

It had been General Feathermoon who’d ordered not one but two druids into the medical building. Umbric wasn’t sure how druid magic really worked, how “calling nature” healed in any capacity, but Whisper was now sleeping, her leg free of shrapnel and cleanly bandaged. One of the kaldorei druids was now permanently stationed there, which should have been the case all along but Umbric wasn’t about to complain now. 

“They never needed one before,” Haalie had said dismissively. “I don’t do field work like that.” 

_They didn’t think. They didn’t plan._ _You never factored into it._

He was grateful that the druids had been Feathermoon’s. Worgen were capable healers, he’d been told, but they were all Greymane’s, and Umbric didn’t trust them. He didn’t trust the kaldorei either but they at least were elves, and with the burning of Teldrassil, he thought that they too now understood the sanctity of elven life. 

Feathermoon didn’t like him, he knew, thought the Void terrifying and unsafe. But she kept her word, and if she’d placed a druid in with the other healers, _for_ his ren’dorei, his ren’dorei would see that druid. 

He scrubbed both hands over his face. Thought very seriously about screaming. No one would look in on him if he did. 

His eyes closed as the faint scent of florals hit him. Without thinking, he pressed his nose to the hair ribbon wound around his wrist, inhaling the sweet smell. Behind his eyelids flitted images of Valeera: silhouetted against the sunlit greenery of the Zandalari jungle, applying ruby red paint to her full lips; rising from his bed and stretching, long limbs brushing the top of his tent and gorgeous sunshine hair cascading down the expanse of her back; bruised and wanting beneath his strong hands, ultimately ceding control in the way he desired and the way she needed. She’d never been difficult to figure out, not in that regard.

Breaking her down, piece by piece ﹣ it had been exhilarating. She’d been so uptight, so closed off when he’d met her. Afraid to admit what she really wanted, surrounded by so many walls he could hardly see the woman within. Sex was the only area of his life in which he had any control, and he wasn’t about to give it up to someone who so obviously needed to let go of her own. 

_“Please,”_ she’d breathed. He could almost feel the warmth of her, if he thought hard enough.

_She’s gone now. It’s your own fault you feel this way. You weren’t supposed to get attached._

He’d never meant to. Valeera was only supposed to be a one-off. A physical attraction to a beautiful woman, a way to pass the time in Voidforsaken Zandalar. Something to take his mind off his dying people, his hatred of Shaw, his festering aspiration to set every eldritch fiend in existence upon the unprepared forces of the Alliance...

He inhaled again, the lingering scent of her hair seeping into his nostrils and curling warmly in his gut. When had she begun to mean so fucking much? When had it started? When had he begun to look forward to finding her in his tent, to sitting side by side and finishing a meal? To waking up to her warm and sleepy in his bed and arms?

When had she gone from being just a warm body to being _Valeera?_

Umbric inhaled deeply and held it. Two seconds. Three. And then he exhaled heavily. 

_You insulted her._ _Her pride won’t let her forget that._

He pulled his sleeve down over his forearm and reached again for his pen. 

* * *

_The cooling enchantments did little to mitigate the heat of the Zandalari jungle, but the persistent mugginess abetted slightly within the confines of the little tent, despite the closeness of the three walls and the pinned closed flap that served as a door. The fabric was made of good, strong spidersilk, robust enough to keep out the rains but breathable enough that he did not suffocate in the humidity._

_No matter how many cooling enchantments he cast, nothing would erase the thin sheen of sweat coating his flesh, leaving him slightly chilled. A warm feeling had settled in his chest, flooding down all the way to the tips of his toes. He threw an arm over his eyes, filling his lungs with the faint smells of distant ocean air and recent sex. He’d never felt so content._

_Beside him Valeera rolled until she was nearly on top of him, pushing her silky hair behind her ears. Her face bore a mischievous smirk._

_“Hello there.” The corners of his own mouth turned up as he peeked at her from beneath his forearm._

_“Hi.” A laugh lingered beneath the word, just out of reach. Gently, she pulled his arm from his face, taking in the strong jaw and bruised lips, his straight, regal nose, the raised blue-black eyebrows. “What’s going on in there?”_

_Her legs hugged his thighs, calves sliding along his own, like pieces of a puzzle. Stopped just short of his ankles, slotted in place. He felt it before he saw her sit up, baring herself before him unashamedly. She was beautiful, ethereal in the thin silver glow of the magelight, and his hands stroked her thighs where they kissed his skin. Perhaps the Alliance was worth it_ ﹣ _without them, he wouldn’t have her._

_She hummed as he touched her, hands skittering along the long limbs bracketing him in, squeezing the soft globes of her bottom. There was no real purpose to it this time; there was no heat in it, no urgency, no need. He caressed her for no other reason than because he wanted to, enjoyed the sensation of his hands dancing over her ticklish sides, the feeling of her growing wet on top of him. His thumb grazed one of her dusky nipples and her breath hitched; she bit her lip as though trying to hide the noise. As though by making a sound at all, she would lose whatever shred of control she thought she had._

_Emotion swelled tight in his ribcage, squeezing his heart almost painfully. There was nothing in this world outside of this tent, outside of this bed, nothing but them and the small chunk of solace they had carved out within. They weren’t the magister and the elite assassin, not here. Just a woman trapped behind walls of her own making, and the man who had broken them down._

_He knew few things in this life with any certainty. Where the Alliance would send him next, or what Valeera did in the trolls’ golden city. If he would live to see his next birthday, or the one after that. But he knew without a doubt, as he tugged her back down, nibbling at her lower lip and sighing against her yearning mouth, that he was in love with her._

_He didn’t know how it had happened, but he didn’t think it mattered all that much._

_“Valeera.” And her hands were cupping his face, so gentle and soft he hardly felt them._

_“Shhh,” she soothed, lips just barely grazing his own. His eyes closed of their own accord, lulled by the quiet melody of her voice. “Ana’eran… surfal…”_

_Curtains of sweet smelling golden hair fell around them, isolating them from the world. “Ana’eran surfal,” he murmured, safe from Shaw’s orders and Zandalari prelates and the unfeeling faction to which he’d so hastily pledged himself. In this moment, wrapped in and around her, she loved him, and that made everything worth it._

  
  
  


The blanket was scratchy against his skin as Umbric came into himself, the last vestiges of his dream still ringing in his ears. _Ana’eran… surfal…_ He almost laughed. Valeera had never said the words, never said she loved him, in any language. She might have, if he hadn’t…

He sighed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It wasn’t helping anything, mooning after her like this. If the person he’d been once could see him now, he would be disappointed. 

_You weren’t this pathetic over the Grand Magister._

Umbric forced himself to sit up, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. Yawned. No, he hadn’t been. Rommath had never been… _attainable._ Had always been far, far above his reach, consorting with the crown prince and government heads. Never held anything but contempt for a young show off with a proclivity towards the unsavory, dangerous sway of the Void. Rommath’s eyes had burned when he looked at him, but the only emotion there, when they’d last seen each other, was hate. 

He snorted, an inelegant, ugly noise. Perhaps that was part of the attraction ﹣ Rommath’s utter indifference. Valeera had been indifferent to him too, at first. 

The blanket fell back with a sigh as he swung his legs over, set his feet flat on the floor. After several days he was nearly used to the magic buzzing in the very ground, almost couldn’t feel it anymore. He would be sad to leave, when the day came. He would miss that. 

He was nearly dressed when the knock came. A banging, really, harsh and violent against the splintered ruin of his front door. Hastily donning a soft violet tunic he dashed over, and nearly earned himself a fist to the face as the wood disappeared under the next knock.

“Magister Umbric.” It was Shade, her tired face pinched, and when she spoke her tone was frantic. “Something’s happened.”

A vice seized his heart, throbbing painfully against his ribs. “What?” he demanded, stepping out on the nonexistent front porch. Dimly, he realized he had yet to put on shoes.

“Whisper.” Shade was practically vibrating with the attempt to stay still, to report to him as she should. “Haalie’s there now, but﹣”

He ran, not caring if she followed him. There was only one reason one of his people would show up like this. 

“Clear a path! Move!” Some people did, leaping out of the way of a magister storming down the medical building. Others he shoved, hard, and he did not apologize. _Please_ ﹣

By the time he reached Whisper, Shade hot on his heels, she was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry y'all have to suffer through my love of language and linguistics. If I could, I'd write a whole essay on the elven languages as a whole, and what real life languages I headcanon other racial languages to be based on. I wish Blizz would hire a linguist to make them proper languages, not just scattered phrases. It's an untapped gold mind, Blizz!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric reacts to Whisper's death and learns something unsettling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shadowlands, Dalah'surfal, and this horrible weather are really taking up a lot of my energy lately. ε-(´・｀) ﾌ

Infection killed Whisper, said her official medical report. The spearhead she had been pierced with was not found to have been poisoned or tampered with, aside from being broken; it was assumed the wound had not been properly debrided, allowing strange Nazja organisms and bacteria to make their home in her flesh. She had complained of nausea, the report said, and after twenty-four hours the wound was indicated as still red and discharging pus. By thirty-six hours her fever had spiked to dangerous levels. In forty-two hours she was dead. 

The parchment crumpled in Umbric’s shaking fists. Forty-two hours. He was not a healer, and in fact was more likely to hurt himself than help anyone, but even he knew that despite the infection’s rapid onset, _it shouldn’t have happened._ Every healer had some sort of ability to dispel infection. Even the non-magical ones, with their strange medicines and poultices. Umbric didn’t know the fancy names for their skills but he knew they existed. _That was why they were healers._

Feathermoon’s druids hadn’t shown up for nearly an hour after the priest had left Whisper with a fucking spearhead lodged in the meat of her leg. An entire hour. They had yanked it out ﹣ Whisper had nearly broken Umbric’s hand, clutching it as hard as she had and screaming for all she was worth ﹣ and packed the wound with some sort of enchanted cloth to stop the bleeding, wrapped her thigh up tight and given her a sedative and dreamless sleep potion. 

They had dreamless sleep potions in their medical kits but no one on hand to heal the ren’dorei who needed them. 

_The sleeping potions were never for you. Your ren’dorei just happen to claim them far more often than their true intendeds._

Where had the druids gone? Had they checked on her? The wound was noted to still be oozing at the time of death ﹣ had they cleaned it? Changed the dressing? How had no one noticed her fever? Briefly, Umbric longed for the tidesages who had tended him after he’d drowned in Dazar’alor. He hadn’t been conscious for most of it, but they checked in so often as to be annoying, and even the smallest change in temperature warranted a thorough examination and copious medicines. 

He didn’t know what school of magic tidesages followed, but it had saved his life. 

Perhaps he should hire tidesages. Order that no operation using a ren’dorei could proceed without one. 

_Your people died after Dazar’alor._

But it hadn’t been in the tidesages’ recovery hall. 

_You haven’t the coin to buy enough tidesages. And the Alliance will not stand for them to solely heal ren'dorei. No good healer would leave one to fester on the off chance that another might injure themselves._

No good healer. The 7th Legion was supposed to have the _best_ healers in the entire Alliance. They were supposed to be the best of the best. Yet their healers had left Whisper to languish in agony for over an hour, and then neglected her to the point of death. 

With every ounce of self control he possessed, Umbric left the room, and somehow did not slam the rickety door behind him, the medical report still crinkled in his tightly coiled fist. 

  
  
  


In the repurposed town hall a meeting was underway. Or perhaps it was finishing or maybe hadn’t started, Umbric wasn’t sure. Shandris Feathermoon was there, leaning against the sturdy table beside the ankoan leader Okani and studying the many maps littering its surface, and King Greymane was dictating to some worgen soldier. In the corner stood Jaina Proudmoore and Grand Marshal Tremblade. Umbric still wasn’t sure who she was, but could piece together that she was the leader of an important division of soldiers. Possibly the commander of the 7th Legion in Nazjatar. 

“﹣that to back to Boralus,” Greymane was saying. The soldier handed him the clipboard upon which he’d been writing and Greymane scribbled on it ﹣ his signature, most likely ﹣ before bowing his head and ducking out of the room. He didn’t acknowledge Umbric as he passed, and Umbric tried hard not to take offense. 

Stay calm. 

“King Greymane,” he announced. “A word please.” 

At the sound of his voice, four heads turned in his direction. Feathermoon regarded him in the blank, detached way of ancient kaldorei as the old worgen answered, “Good of you to join us, Magister Umbric. Blademaster Okani was just putting together a proposal for a scouting mission to Kal’methir, now that we have a proper map.”

Don’t react. Don’t lash out. 

“Actually,” Umbric cut in, exhaling harshly through his nose, “I have a serious manner to discuss with you, sir.” 

It bothered the old worgen to be called sir. There was nothing particularly wrong with the address, but the man was a king, and demanded his proper, pompous titles. Umbric didn’t know if Greymane understood just how little he respected him by not calling him _Your Majesty._ There was no Thalassian equivalent to the “sir” spoken to a king, after all, only one meant to address a man of equal standing.

Grey bushy brows furrowed along a forehead drawn with aged lines. “More serious than the push forward into naga territory?” 

An elven life was more serious than _all_ this Alliance bullshit!

Before he could stop himself, Umbric was thrusting the crinkled report in Greymane’s face. “One of my people _died,”_ he snapped, “because of gross incompetence on the part of _yours._ I want assurance it won’t happen again.”

Assurance wouldn’t bring Whisper back, or any of the others, but it would perhaps stay the following of the rest. 

King Greymane did not take the paper. Umbric heard the slight squeak of enamel as the worgen ground his teeth before saying, “Deaths are an unfortunate consequence of war, magister. The world is hard. You knew when you joined this Alliance that you were not walking into a peaceful utopia.”

He hadn’t known, when he’d signed the agreement to pledge the ren’dorei to the blue, that this was what they’d planned for his people. Hadn’t known they would be sent to the front lines, saddled with the most dangerous missions, living among people who did not trust them and openly despised them. He remembered the wording of that treaty very clearly: _The Alliance agrees to perform the following in exchange for Ren’dorei services: The Alliance shall provide asylum to the Ren’dorei forces led by Magister Umbric, The Alliance shall ensure the safety of all Ren’dorei civilians and agents of war, The Alliance shall provide equal opportunity and fair housing and occupations for the Ren’dorei, including but not limited to civilian businesses within Stormwind City and related Alliance Territories, as well as exclusive opportunities within the elite Alliance Organizations (SI:7, 7th Legion, Wrynn’s Vanguard, Stormwind Army and Navy, etc etc). In return, the Ren’dorei shall…_

The Alliance had violated every single point in that agreement, while the ren’dorei had upheld their end at every turn. 

“I had been assured my people would not be _slaughtered_ by those we now call allies!”

The old worgen’s boots clomped on the stone floor as he surged forward, stopping a hair’s breadth from the magister. His lip curled and, flicking stormy grey eyes dismissively in the direction of Whisper’s medical report, he hissed, “We have all lost people, _magister._ None of us blames the Alliance for our suffering. One dead elf, while surely a tragedy, is no reason to hurl false accusations at your betters.” 

The Alliance needed them. No one could do what the ren’dorei did. Wasn’t that why Alleria had brought them to Stormwind in the first place?

“We have lost _thirty-nine,”_ Umbric said tersely. 

“The night elves lost thousands in the burning of Teldrassil. I would say, comparatively, that you have been quite fortunate.”

“WE ONLY HAD ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO TO BEGIN WITH!”

The silence that followed was deafening. General Feathermoon, standing stiffly to one side, watched them quietly while Tremblade’s hands flew to her face. The ankoan seemed to be watching a sporting match, his monstrous head shaking back and forth between elf and worgen. 

And then the peace broke.

Greymane seized a fistful of Umbric’s robes, nails digging sharply into the flesh beneath. His eyes blazed. “I don’t care who you’re fucking ﹣ you will _not_ speak to me like that.”

_Do it. Kill him. Right now._

It would be so easy, to give in. The Void roiled beneath Umbric’s skin, angry and eager. Every muscle tensed. 

_No one could stop you. He’s too close._

He saw it clearly in his mind’s eye. The purple-black aura of the Void oozing from his pores, burrowing into grizzled flesh and fur. Heard clearly the screams, as tendrils of dark energy bled into the king's veins, corrupting the blood and turning it against him. Saw himself raise his own hand, and the worgen’s very shadow leap from the floor to crush him from behind, squeezing so tightly that his worgen bones couldn’t change quickly enough, couldn’t shift forms before the shadow wrapped its clawed hands around his throat. The wheeze as his ribcage collapsed, puncturing his lungs, ichor dripping from his wicked mouth﹣

“Genn!” 

At once there was Jaina, stepping between them like a mother forcibly separating squabbling siblings. The worgen was shivering ﹣ not with the Void but from the effort to not transform. To not swipe at Umbric with deadly claws and rip his chest wide open. 

“Everybody calm down,” the Lord Admiral advised. “These are difficult times, and all our tempers are high. This is what Azshara wants. If we fight amongst ourselves, we will have no one left to face her.”

This had never been about fucking Azshara. 

“Do you not hear him, Jaina?” Greymane snarled. “This is not the first time he’s questioned the Alliance, and now he would blame us for the careless death of one of his own!”

Darkness began to cloud Umbric's vision. “Careless?!”

“Stop!” Proudmoore ordered. “Both of you, stop!”

“Have you ever felt a shred of loyalty for anything, elf? Do you even know the meaning of the word?”

Silvermoon flashed in his mind. The Sunwell. The wings of Al’ar the phoenix god as he flew over the Thalassian forests, singing his blessed, holy song. 

The ren’dorei, huddled in the decrepit Dawnstar Spire. The funeral pyres in the courtyard, and the little cluster of graves. Shani and Nicanor Ward and the precious life they’d created. 

Celosel and Kelain and Savia, Rauvir and Falania, Zarra and Crystalynn and Mastus and Selina. Mendaci and Nazalia and…

The Lord Admiral was speaking again but Umbric didn’t hear her. He needed to leave, before he did something he’d regret. Something horrific. He threw the crumpled report to the ground and stormed out, ears deaf to Greymane’s shouts.

Safe in his own quarters, the reclaimed little building that had once been a kaldorei home, Umbric took several shuddering breaths. He could feel the Void churning inside him, furious and hungry for blood.

All he’d wanted ﹣ all he’d tried to do ﹣ was to save Quel’Thalas. Wanted to make it so no one could breach their borders again, so no one could wreak havoc on the pitiful survivors of the Scourge. He’d wanted to empower the elfagtes, Ban’dinoriel, and seal Quel’Thalas from the world, so that they could rebuild. So that they could grow stronger. So that they could take their vengeance against the undead and the humans who had abandoned them. 

Knowledge had never been a crime in Silvermoon, not until the ascension of Grand Magister Rommath. 

_They don’t understand. It is futile to think they ever will._

_“Are you mad?!”_ Rommath had shouted. _“Do you understand the evils you tempt?!”_

The air had been electric, crackling against the remnants of holy Light from the Chapel several floors above. Umbric had been so excited, so _naïve._ Had thought, in the face of power stronger even than the arcane, the Grand Magister would _thank_ him, would fall to the floor and prostrate himself before Umbric and his assistants. Would raise him up from his lowly research position and recognize him, despite his youth, as equal in both mind and magic. No one else had thought to use the Void. No one else had been so creative.

 _“I forbid it! You endanger all of Silvermoon with your recklessness!”_ Even in his distress, the fury in the Grand Magister’s eyes had sent a hot spike of arousal through him. 

Sitting in the wreckage of his destroyed research, ashes that were once centuries-old tomes and carefully worded abstracts, the shattered and empty Void crystals and broken, twisted magical instruments, Umbric had vowed. No one would stand between him and his research. Nothing would impede his journey, even if it had to be done in secret. He _would_ harness the powers of the Void, and once Quel’Thalas and the Sunwell were safe once more, Rommath would beg for forgiveness, would absolve Umbric and his followers of all their supposed crimes and welcome them back to Silvermoon with open arms. 

He clenched his fist. That had been his goal, when he pledged the ren’dorei to the Alliance. He would prove himself among the humans who had so wronged his people, and when Stormwind was in ruins he would march north, would bring down Ban’dinoriel once again and subdue the likes of Rommath and the Magisters’ Sanctum, the abominable Regent Lord Theron and his Farstrider pets. He would walk again on the shores of Quel’Danas and into the golden light of the Sunwell Grove, where he would infuse the holy font with great and terrible Void energies, eyes alight as it glowed beautifully purple-black, as it pumped power into the souls of every sin’dorei, beating like the heart of the forest once had. They would understand then. Would rejoice when he and his one hundred and thirteen ren’dorei raised the shield over the land, safe forevermore from those who sought to do them harm. 

But first, he had to survive Nazjatar. He and his one hundred and thirteen ren’dorei. Anger shot through him, smoldering in his blood like the fire he used to wield. _Somehow_ they had to survive fucking Nazjatar, and Arathi, and Zandalar, and wherever else the Alliance sent them to die.

His arm struck out, colliding with the thermos of steeped kelp tea the fish men had brought him some time ago. It clattered to the ground, the cap bursting and tea splattering the stone. It was followed by the remains of his lunch, rubbery hydra flank and some sort of sea berries, bouncing uselessly through the puddle of tea. The plate cracked but did not break and in his fury Umbric scooped it hastily from the floor and threw it as hard as he could against the opposite wall, where it exploded into a dozen sharp little pieces with a crash. 

Parchment and field reports and gnomish ink pens all joined the heap on the floor. His Common primer fell with a deeply satisfying _thwack!,_ and the thick volume of dwarvish history he’d bought while in Ironforge his first and only time. He moved too fast to think, too quickly for the Void to take hold, adrenaline and rage guiding his grabby fingers. At the end of it all he stood, gasping for air and eyes prickling uncomfortably, amongst the ruin of his little house. His insides ached dully.

Before he stormed Silvermoon, and before his forces swept Stormwind, Umbric vowed, he would kill Genn Greymane. 

_Arrogant Greymane and indifferent Feathermoon and Commander Wyrmbane. Passive Jaina Proudmoore and lying Alleria Windrunner and holy Lord Commander Turalyon. Sociopathic Mathias Shaw and little King Anduin. Kill them all._

He would kill them. He would destroy them all from the inside, just as they’d tried to do with him, and then when they were hopeless and repentant, he would murder them. 

Umbric let the whispers roll over him, kissing sweet, murderous treachery into the crevices of his mind. The Void understood. The Void had always understood. 

He exhaled, and his head felt a little more clear. He squared his shoulders and with a wave of one hand most of the room righted itself. The ruined food he threw in the trash, the cold tea he vanished. His books flew back to their places on his little desk, on the rickety shelves. His bed remade itself. Carefully he sorted each piece of shredded parchment including, he noted regretfully, one of Haalie’s precious maps. He blotted splashes of tea from the fragments and left them spread out to dry as he departed once more, the wards clicking into place behind him. 

* * *

Elves burned their dead. Long ago they had crafted opulent tombs and ornate coffins, and the quel’dorei of old worked crafty, delicate enchantments into their final resting places, spells of all sorts, whimsical or practical and everything in between. 

The Scourge changed that. The dead could not rise if it possessed no body, and the smell of burning flesh, seared into his memory, always brought Umbric back to that time, no matter where he was now. If possible, he made it a point to light the torch for every pyre. It was his fault, after all, when his people died. He owed it to them to guarantee their journey into the afterlife.

The one good thing about the Alliance’s indifference was that they left the four of them ﹣ Umbric, Haalie, Shade, and Whisper’s body ﹣ alone. Haalie had taken them to a small, disused area just outside of Mezzamere, behind a large outcropping of coral where she liked to sit and escape Greymane’s constant demands. It really would be quite a pretty little spot, Umbric thought, under different circumstances. From here, all of Nazjatar was laid bare, and in the distance stood the shining Eternal Palace.

Shade stood stonefaced beside him and his heart went out to her. She and Whisper had been very close.

“As ore ah talah,” he murmured, approaching the modest pyre with torch in hand. “Ande loren Auri kal ore.” It was an old prayer from the days of his youth, and the Void twitched with ugly jealousy in his chest. _Bless her with true death. May the Light shine upon her._

The withered driftwood caught readily, going up so quickly Umbric had to step hastily back lest his own robes catch fire. The heat bled slowly into them before erupting into a raging inferno, hotter than the sun, and he welcomed the discomfort. It was surely a small, humble glimpse at what Whisper had experienced in her last moments. 

Funerals in old Quel’Thalas had always been grand, ostentatious affairs. Deaths were rare, and great speeches were given, songs were sung, festivities were had to celebrate the life that had been lived. Not so now. Too many had been slaughtered by the Scourge, too many lives to single out any one. Umbric had tried, with his one hundred and fifty-two ren’dorei, to keep tradition. To remind them that each life was important and would not be forgotten. 

The Lament of the Highborne, the ancient song of mourning, had been rewritten after the Scourge, and it was this version that Umbric knew best. Had sung at far too many funerals, was seared into his brain. It was this version he sang now, stumbling and slightly offkey.

_Anar'alah, Anar'alah belore_

_Sin'dorei_

_Shindu fallah na_

_Sin'dorei_

_Anar'alah_

_Shindu sin'dorei_

_Shindu fallah na_

Haalie’s voice added to his own, a thin mournful peal in the cool Nazja twilight.

_Sin'dorei_

_Anar'alah belore_

_Shindu sin'dorei_

_Shindu fallah na_

_Sin'dorei_

_Anar'alah belore_

_Belore_

Shade hummed along, jaw clenched against the torrent of anguish raging inside her. Her cheeks were wet, and Haalie reached out, slipped her hand in the other woman’s and squeezed. 

“Her name was Alorah Everstride,” the rogue murmured, so quietly Umbric didn’t hear her at all. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to. “She will not be forgotten.”

No. None of them would ever be forgotten. 

* * *

“Magister Umbric?” 

The accompanying knock was firm, the knock of someone used to commanding authority and inwardly Umbric sighed. It didn’t sound like the old worgen, who pounded the door once and demanded entrance. Things with Greymane had been extremely tense the past few days. Despite his fondness for the place, Umbric was extremely glad that his mission had been a short one ﹣ less than a fortnight for preliminary assessment of the Eternal Palace ﹣ and to be returning to Stormwind. 

Abandoning his packing, wishing dimly in the back of his mind for the servants with whom he’d grown up, Umbric crossed the little room and unlocked the door, revealing the surprising form of Jaina Proudmoore on his doorstep.

“Lord Admiral?” He couldn’t keep the question from his tone. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Proudmoore was a mystery to Umbric. When he had been in Kul Tiras, she had been in prison. The disgraced daughter of Daelin and Katherine Proudmoore, a war criminal ﹣ Umbric wasn’t really sure. His knowledge of human history was lacking and he didn’t really care to expand it when there were so many other things that required his attention. She’d had no control over him in Zandalar, and when he’d returned suddenly Katherine was no longer the Lord Admiral but Jaina, and he’d been unable to procure a satisfactory explanation as to why. Perhaps Katherine had been touched by the return of her only living child, her second son presumed lost at sea. It didn’t concern Umbric, and until he’d come to Nazjatar he’d had little reason to speak to the woman directly. 

“Good evening, magister.” The mage gave a polite little bow, bending slightly at the waist in a style that would not look out of place performed by an elf. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. May I come in?”

She was, in fact, disturbing him, and he didn’t especially want her in his quarters, but Umbric swallowed these feelings and stepped aside. “Of course.” 

It was polite, when entering one’s residence, to offer the visitor a place to sit and remove their shoes, and then to provide refreshment. Umbric was done being polite to the Alliance. If Proudmoore noticed, she said nothing. 

“I wanted to wish you an easy trip back to Stormwind,” she said after a moment. A formality, appreciated if not needed. With the portal carefully guarded in the town hall Stormwind was merely a step away, but many people, even the most powerful of mages, suffered from portal sickness. Umbric had heard that even the great Grand Magister wasn’t spared the nausea that sometimes accompanied a long distance portal. Thankfully, he’d never fallen ill from portaling before. Rather enjoyed the light headedness that came with walking through the swirling magics. 

He nodded, a short jab of his chin. “Thank you.” Only a few more hours remained before he was free to depart and he had allotted none of them for Jaina Proudmoore. He tried to tamp down his annoyance. “I feel that hardly requires a personal visit,” he pointed out.

“No,” she agreed, “but in light of recent events, I thought it appropriate, and necessary to catch you before you left Mezzamere.”

Umbric raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” 

She invited herself to sit at his table and he had no choice but to follow her lead. He did not offer her tea, nor even a conjured cake. “I think perhaps this warrants a more delicate method of deliverance,” she told him, and he almost missed the meaning behind the words completely because she had spoken them _in Thalassian._

“You know Thalassian?” he blurted, in the same language. Quite rudely too, though she did not take offense. 

Proudmoore nodded. “I learned during my time in Dalaran. I had a very good tutor.” She spoke in the high register of aristocrats, extremely formal and slighted dated. It reminded him of Rommath, albeit without the haughtiness and disdain. 

Well-educated mages were taught Darnassian, not Thalassian. All the old magicks were written in Darnassian. Why did Jaina Proudmoore know Thalassian?

While Umbric’s mind raced, the Lord Admiral was pulling a crinkled sheet of parchment from her robes, smoothing it over the scrubbed wooden table with a dainty hand. “I hope you don’t mind,” she was saying, “but I conducted a small investigation into your rogue’s death.” 

_Rogue_ was a dirty word in Thalassian, spoken with derision no matter the context, and Umbric couldn’t decide if the woman had meant it as such or simply lacked the vocabulary to say something else. Regardless, the mention of Whisper set him on edge. 

“I see.” He folded his hands before him on the table, for want of something to do. There wasn’t much he could say in his native language that would not be taken badly, and perhaps that was why the Lord Admiral chose to speak it. “And?”

Proudmoore frowned, tapping her nails over the parchment. “I was disturbed, to say the least. No one so grievously wounded should wait so long for a proper healer. Our shadow priest was in the field, but there were and are a great many natural healers available in camp, and the attending priest who saw to her first did not call immediately for them.” 

Umbric knew that. Druids ﹣ _natural healers_ in Thalassian ﹣ were plentiful in a camp run by a kaldorei general. Druids, shamans, and monks all fit neatly under that label, those who relied on nature magicks rather than the Light. Unfortunately, there had not been a single one beneath the medics’ roof. 

“The attending priest has been court martialed, and suspended without pay. A small consolation, I know. He claims to have wanted the aid of a specific shaman who has healed several of your ren’dorei in the past.”

Probably one of Frida Ironbellows’ people. The Dark Irons were not so terrified of the Void as other races were. There were a handful of them posted in Nazjatar. 

Umbric did his best to keep his voice even and his tone neutral. He was not speaking to his ren’dorei, could not lapse into the disrespectful speech he often adopted when speaking of their Alliance allies. “Whisper returned to camp on a stretcher with a spear embedded in her thigh, Lord Admiral. Even that priest could have removed it.”

Proudmoore frowned, a tiny furrow of her blonde eyebrows, and placed a finger to her lips as though searching for words. Perhaps she was. “It was his belief that the spear was less dangerous to her if left that way. It is ill advised to remove a foreign object without careful assessment ﹣ the blood loss, which he could not treat, could have killed her outright.”

There had been a lot of blood. The druids sent by General Feathermoon had spent several precious minutes simply pressing thick, clean rags to the wound, scrabbling for new ones as the old were soaked through. The spear had pierced all the way to the bone, and the hole it left ragged from the serrated tip.

“Regardless, he should have sent for any of the natural healers in camp ﹣ even General Feathermoon could have been consulted, if for any reason none were available. He did not, and for that I extend my deepest apologies and sympathies.” 

Umbric said nothing. His mind was a blur, analyzing and overanalyzing every word, every inflection. He knew, in the back of his mind, that he couldn’t quite trust what she was saying ﹣ humans had rarely been able to grasp the complexities of Thalassian, and though Proudmoore’s was good, it sometimes slipped. She was not a native speaker, and he could not be sure which were mistakes and which were intentional.

Proudmoore indicated the report again. “I did speak to the druids who tended Whisper as well. It seemed fever took her too rapidly to control and she was unable to stomach medicine. The two alternated in treating her, and did not take on other patients. Faelie Seawhisper told me she consulted with another druid on treatment, when your rogue stopped responding to hers. There were no lapses in judgment on their part and they were returned to their posts.”

_Of course they were. No one would dare blame a kaldorei for anything in the wake of Teldrassil. They are fragile and broken-spirited._

But the dwarf who had treated Whisper initially had been punished, and that was a small victory.

_He will be reinstated. The 7th Legion holds more influence than you._

“If it pleases you, I would send for several tidesages from Boralus,” Proudmoore continued, “and under my command they would be posted exclusively as medical personnel.”

 _If it pleases you._ Umbric turned the phrase over in his mind. Proudmoore had obviously learned Thalassian from someone more arrogant than elf. The way the words were strung together… He had used the same phrase when speaking of the Alliance to his ren'dorei. It was not a kind one, as Proudmoore seemed to think it was. It soured her offer and the gentle tone in which it was given. 

Or perhaps she was mocking him. 

_Didn’t you want a tidesage? How interesting that one would be suddenly presented to you._

What would she ask in return for such a favor, and a large one at that?

_It’s not a favor. Listen to her words._

Proudmoore was human and ignorant of her own derisive speech. It was respectful that she should try and speak to him in his own language, one that naturally lent itself better to delicate negotiations. No one else had ever done the same. 

_She means for you to agree so that you will be in her debt. Just how many will you pledge your people to? Is the little lion not ruthless enough in his extermination of the ren’dorei?_

Would he be this focused on her words if she had spoken Common?

“I will not lose Shade and Haalie,” Umbric said carefully. “They are far too valuable.” He let the implication sit unspoken between them, and hoped she was smart enough to pick up on it. He would recall them both if he were able. They would leave with him tonight if it were within his power to order it.

“You will not,” Proudmoore concurred. “I will see to it that they are treated with the same respect we afford to all Alliance special forces.” 

_She ridicules you._

He would be a fool to spurn her offer. 

His gut clenched uneasily. _She speaks prettily like Alleria Windrunner, and look what happened there._

An eon seemed to blossom in the silence, as Umbric thought over it all. He could not disregard that she seemed to be trying to speak plainly in Thalassian, a language not exactly suited to such, nor could he entirely ignore the slightly derogatory pitch to her words. She could mean them, or she might have been ignorant of the implication in tone. And yet she was offering her own powerful tidesages for the safety of Haalie and Shade, a conversation he could recall and throw back in her face should she renege on her duties. He chewed the inside of his cheek. 

“Thank you,” Umbric said at last. “That seems agreeable.” Tidesages did not often double as fighters, nor were they usually trained in combat healing. There should be little reason for them to leave Mezzamere and abandon his ren’dorei. “How soon shall my people expect yours?” With him in Stormwind, no orders for the women’s dispatch would pass through him. If Greymane or Feathermoon demanded they leave the camp for any reason, they would not be able to refuse. 

Proudmoore frowned again, this time in thought. “I have business in Boralus at the end of the week. I will arrange to leave a day or so early, and make inquiries upon arrival.” 

There were four days until the end of the week. 

Whisper had been posted to Nazjatar and died within eleven days. 

_It is not worth the risk._

Umbric nodded. “Thank you. I would feel more at ease if this process could be expedited.”

“I will do my best, magister.” 

Humans shook hands upon agreement and Umbric offered his now. As he understood it, a handshake sealed the bargain, made it more difficult to back out later. The Lord Admiral clasped his hand easily and shook it once. 

It gave him only small comfort. 

  
  
  


Before departing for Stormwind, Umbric sent for Shade and the two convened in Haalie’s little house. He informed them of his deal with the Lord Admiral, one which Haalie didn’t seem to think would be followed through. 

“Be alert when you speak among yourselves,” he cautioned. “Lady Proudmoore speaks Thalassian.” 

The news rocked them as it had him, their faces a mirror for the fear he felt in his own heart.

* * *

Waking in his own bed was a luxury he did not often enjoy, and Umbric floated on the cusp of consciousness for quite some time. A mild indulgence, born from no one’s immediate need of him. Indeed, he had nothing to do all day ﹣ at least, not until his usual sojourn to Diel Thalas, to deliver the news of Whisper’s death. He pulled the covers up over his head. Perhaps if he lay there long enough, the ren’dorei would just _know_ and he wouldn’t have to say it. 

But he knew better than that. It was his duty as their leader to distribute all news, good and bad. He just wished he had something better to tell them. 

Dimly, Umbric wondered when he would be summoned to the Keep. Surely Greymane had complained already about his outburst. He wondered if it would be Shaw again, giving him his dressing down. Shaw had done it before in Boralus.

With a groan he rolled over and out of bed. Though he didn’t intend on disturbing the ren’dorei until dinner ﹣ no sense in darkening their day so early ﹣ his stomach was starting to clench painfully. He was either hungry or sickened; both were equally likely. There was no food in his larder, of course; he would have to go out, and so he bathed and dressed as he always did, cleaned his teeth and ran a comb through his hair. He considered his reflection for a long time. He was coming to the age where male elves traditionally began to grow their hair, and he ran his fingers through his. Were he still in Silvermoon, perhaps he would have started several years ago ﹣ hair took such a tediously long time to reach any respectable length. His father’s hair had reached his thighs, carefully brushed and braided out of his face every morning. Umbric tried to picture himself with tresses like his father’s ﹣ the high tail, a half dozen neat little braids decorating his scalp beneath the gather of the hair tie, which had always been one of the many high quality manasilk ribbons gifted to his father by his mother. The crystal hairbrush with its soft bristles, rivaled in sheen by the locks it caressed. His father had been very old, had died with his hair uncut. 

Umbric frowned. He didn’t look much like his father. His mother’s son, everyone always said. He had her small upturned nose and sharp cheekbones, shared the same shape of her eyes and her thick lashes. He had his father’s ears, he thought, fingering one gently. He and his father both had very tall, upright ears. 

Grand Magister Rommath had similar ears. Their faces were not at all alike ﹣ the Grand Magister’s jaw was stronger, his nose more aquiline, and his eyebrows more angled ﹣ but their ears were, and Umbric tried to picture himself with the magiser’s long hair. Rommath was not fussy. He wore his hair in a neat and clean tail with no additional adornments, no braids or fancy ribbons. Umbric had often fantasized about threading his fingers through the inky black curtain, tangling them in the strands and pulling gently.

He frowned again. Even a simple style such as the Grand Magister’s he could not imagine himself wearing. His hair had always been short, and he liked it that way. He had not stood out as much after the Scourge, his youth less apparent surrounded by hundreds of short-locked mourners. Most of his ren’dorei had cut their hair for one reason or another. Grief, the feeling of disgrace, or the want of a fresh start. He did not look out of place among the ren’dorei, and the humans didn’t know any better. 

With a huff, he put his comb down. Tsked to himself. He was not his father ﹣ he was not even sin’dorei anymore. What did it matter the length of his hair? He shelved the thought; he could always return to it later. 

A flash of red appeared at the edge of his vision as he started down the stairs.

Just there, mostly under his bed where it had been kicked two weeks prior. He’d been so tired when he arrived last night, he hadn’t even seen it. 

Slowly, as though moving underwater, Umbric crossed the room. Dropped to his knees beside his ostentatious feather bed. Reached, and drew the scrap of red out. 

Valeera’s shirt. She’d still been wearing his when she left him. 

He sat frozen, the fabric crumpling in his hands. It still smelled of her, soft florals and sweat and _Valeera_ drifting faintly up to his nose. He was reminded immediately of the discarded hair ribbon, now sitting buried in his pack, also forgotten in her haste to leave. His heart thumped painfully in his chest. 

It was not a secret to him that Valeera poked through his things. She was the king’s spy and he’d always supposed a rampant curiosity came with the territory. She’d picked his locks and suppressed his wards and entered his quarters more times than he could count. It was unlike her to ask permission, and he thought that came with the job as well. 

Umbric had been gone for two weeks. Plenty of time, if she’d wanted, for Valeera to sneak in and reclaim her fallen shirt. He wouldn’t have been any the wiser; he hadn’t known until now it was there. That it was, still in its place half hidden beneath his bed, told him that in his fourteen day absence, Valeera had not come back. 

Pressing the soft fabric to his face, Umbric swore he heard the cracking of his own heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umbric sings the Lament of the Highborne that we hear ingame, complete with "sin'dorei." I debated changing it but decided to keep it intact, because sin'dorei means "children of the blood" and the quel'dorei renamed themselves children of the blood in honor of those who'd fallen to the Scourge. The word is used literally here, not politically. If you read my Rommath work, Enough, you know that this song was sung at the funeral of Anasterian.
> 
> Re: Thalassian. Because night elf culture is based on a mix of Asian cultures and high/blood/void elves are descended from them, I'm treating the Thalassian language like an Asian language, particularly a mix of Chinese (for tones) and Japanese (for the layers of formality and politeness that vary depending on the age, position, and social standing of the person being addressed. Chinese has this too but I'm not as familiar with Chinese languages). You can say the exact same thing four or five different ways in Japanese, such as "let's read this chapter," and if you use the wrong level of formality you can come off extremely rude, even though what you're saying is not rude at all. I treat Common analogous to English, which as we know does not have a system like that. 
> 
> Also if you read Enough, you'll know that while in Dalaran, Jaina was very good friends with Kael'thas, Rommath, and a handful of BC characters (most of the Tempest Keep crew); she learned Thalassian from them. (She of course is no longer friendly with Rommath, after the whole Sunreaver incident.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric finds a way to be helpful that does not involve murder, and meets with Valeera.

Killing the High King would be the hardest challenge. Guarded day and night by dozens of elite kingsguard and surrounded by some of the most physically and magically powerful people in the Alliance, Anduin Wrynn was a prized jewel in an extremely secure vault, his keys locked away in their own impregnable vaults, and all of it ensconced by swords, wands, pikes, and curses. 

The Lion's Guard was negligible, Umbric thought as he climbed the many steps to Stormwind Keep. Puppets in metal suits, easily crushed beneath their own weight and hollowed from the inside by a sea of Void aberrations. It was everyone else who posed a problem. 

Generally Umbric thought little of those who could not work magic. In his experience, magic was the superior force, able to cut down in an instant thousands of battle hardened soldiers and all their carefully crafted weapons. Genn Greymane and his worgen were no real threat. Even if the old king managed to transform, he would have to be exceptionally close to do any life-threatening damage ﹣ worgen claws were deadly and their teeth could shear through bone ﹣ and Umbric was confident in his own mastery of the Void to be able to subdue a few dogs before they began barking in earnest. 

Mathias Shaw, however… Shaw was twitchy and paranoid, constantly on alert and always knew his exits. He was never more than a few feet from the little king, and while the spymaster openly wore two ornate daggers at his hips, he was sure to have more than a dozen tiny concealed knives on his person at any one moment. The Void had shown Umbric, in his many visions, much of Shaw’s prowess. Restraining him would be difficult. The man was slippery as an eel and had no qualms about dislocating his own joints if it would provide the precious few centimeters needed for escape, and Umbric would not be able to hold him _too_ tightly, lest he suffocate before the death of his king. And Umbric _so_ wanted him to watch that. He wanted to rip away from Shaw everything that he himself had lost, but Shaw was an enigma and not even the Void could show him what went on in the spymaster’s head. What it would hurt to lose. 

The guards posted at the doors nodded as he slipped by, his soft silk slippers making the barest slip of noise as he hurried over the polished marble tiles. Jaina Proudmoore would be an issue as well. She was a frequent sight in Stormwind, and possessed a frankly terrifying command over not only ice and arcane ﹣ which Umbric had always been taught was not usual, not _normal_ to be not only proficient in but also _master_ two schools of magic ﹣ but also water. He’d never heard of a frost mage with any sort of command of the seas, but he had seen with his own eyes Jaina bring the deluge that gutted the Zandalari forces. Stormwind was a _seaside_ city. Bringing her down would require a considerable amount of effort and he didn’t know if he had the ability to do it. 

And then there was the dragon. 

Wrathion, the Earth Warder and Prince of the Black Dragonflight, was becoming a fixture in the Keep as well, and nearly always in the vicinity of the little lion in his capacity as advisor. He’d been sent from Silithus by Magni Bronzebeard and seemed to have a keen attachment to the boy king. Umbric had no doubt that should he attack Anduin, Wrathion would appear from wherever he’d been to burn him alive.

How the fuck did one kill a dragon?

_He is one of Neltharion’s, he who was known as Deathwing the Destroyer._

The rumors said that Wrathion was uncorrupted, untouched by the madness of the Old Gods and immune to the song of the Void.

_No black dragon can escape the Void. He can be turned. He will fight for you._

A dragon on his side would make things much easier. With Stormwind in flames, he’d barely have to lift a finger…

Umbric started, nearly running into the crossed pikes barring his path. Recovering quickly and pasting a scowl on his face, he demanded, “What is the meaning of this?”

“Apologies,” said the guard nearest him, “but there’s a war meeting taking place, sir. No one in or out.”

Of course these idiots wouldn’t recognize him. All elves looked the same to humans. “I am Magister Umbric,” he proclaimed, “leader of the ren’dorei. I am to be in that meeting.”

The guard opposite shook her head. “There’s already a void elf there, sir. The Lady Alleria. She arrived last, said to shut the door behind her.” 

Oh, that woman made it so _easy_ to hate her. Who was she, to proclaim herself their leader and representative of their best interests? She knew nothing of his ren’dorei, not their sacrifices and struggles and dreams. She wasn’t there in the Ghostlands, surviving off rotting mushrooms and decayed moss ﹣ she wasn’t there at any funeral, at any battle, at _anything!_ Alleria Windrunner lived in her gilded tower with her golden husband, deaf to his pleas and their suffering. Who was she to simply waltz into this meeting in _his_ rightful place and forbid him entry?!

“Thank you,” he bit out, the words barely able to force themselves through his gritted teeth. “Please inform Lady Alleria I wish to speak with her when the meeting concludes.” The guards both touched their hands to their foreheads in salute, watched him stalk back down the hallway through which he’d come.

Alleria, he thought grimly, posed a similar challenge to Spymaster Shaw. Farstriders were elite ambush warriors, he’d heard, able to conceal themselves as well as any rogue and fire arrow after arrow from the shadows. It made him ill to think of murdering someone who was technically his compatriot, one of the few ren’dorei in existence, but Alleria had shown time and again her interests lay in furthering her own position in the Alliance. Not with them. The Void would be glad to take its power back from her. 

He’d planned to spend time in Stormwind’s massive library after the war meeting and it was in this direction his feet took him. The librarian was used to seeing him and generally paid him little mind, and was not so frightened of his unsettling aura as to be unhelpful should he ask. He rarely did, preferring to do his own research, not minding if he became sidetracked by something else along the way.

Umbric liked libraries. He’d spent countless hours in Silvermoon’s, still missed the cool atmosphere and gentle white glow of magelight. Elves knew how to preserve books, and that seemed to be one of the few bits of knowledge humans had really taken to heart. Nearly every room in Stormwind Keep featured at least one large window to let in the sun but the library didn’t. Sunlight was harmful to books, as was the muggy seaside climate, and the library was blessedly chilly as he stepped inside. It had no doors, and so the hall that housed it was also freezing, but humans, Umbric had found, did not possess much common sense. 

He’d come to research a particular ward he wished to place on a desk drawer in his study. It was old Highborne magic of the sort with which he struggled, and he spent quite some time searching for the Old Darnassian dictionary he needed with which to read it. He’d never quite grasped Darnassian ﹣ his own language was its descendant and so he understood the basic grammar, but there were so many false cognates between Thalassian and Darnassian that he was often confused, especially on the subject of magic, which was not spoken of anymore in modern Darnassian and whose vocabulary had changed drastically upon reaching the forests of Quel’Thalas. They did not even use the same word for _magic_ ﹣ the old Highborne had called it _power of the stars_ and _Elune’s gift,_ while Thalassian preferred the much neater _spellcraft_ and _thaumaturgy._

Several spellbooks joined the dictionary at his usual table, squished into the corner at the far end of the room. _Remnants of Zin-Azshari,_ while not strictly a book of magic, also found itself in the pile as it usually did. Having actually _been_ to Zin-Azshari, Umbric wanted to reread choice selections now and see how they stacked against the real thing. A copy sat on his own bookshelf, of course, but it was nice occasionally to read a book that had not been heavily annotated and scribbled over in his small, immaculate handwriting. 

For a moment he wished for Nicanor and his eidetic memory. A summary on a scrap of parchment was not quite the same as having the actual page spread out before him, even if he copied it word for word. There was something easier about reading someone else’s writing, he’d found, when trying to commit vast amounts of information to memory. 

In particular, Umbric wanted to create a ward that could not be broken by a gnomish magic dampening device. He understood little of the technology used to create it ﹣ he was no technomage ﹣ but he _did_ know that it relied on the basic principles of current magical theory, generating its own current to deactivate a ward for a short time. Gnomish technology was both new and ever changing, he understood, and the ancient magicks of the Highborne would be beyond its capabilities. He couldn’t very well keep sensitive material under a magic that Valeera could bend, and while he wasn’t stupid enough to write his actual plotting out, there _were_ experiments and documents he’d like kept away from prying eyes. 

Not that he thought Valeera would actually stroll back into his flat again, like nothing had happened. But SI:7 might, or Shaw himself. Maybe. 

And if his traitorous thoughts were ever exposed before his plan came to fruition, he needed to protect the ren’dorei. He would not involve them until he absolutely had to. 

  
  
  


After several hours it became apparent that the Royal Stormwind Library did not, in fact, have the book he sought. Umbric could picture it very clearly in his mind ﹣ the one he’d read had been a scroll, carefully wrapped in silk and written on smooth paper from a long extinct tree in a spidery hand. He could recall diagrams and shapes but not in any detail. He’d read it in the Forbidden Library of Silvermoon, one of the rare times he’d been granted access, before Rommath had stripped him of all his privileges and clearances. It had been a volume on very ancient, very powerful protection magicks, he remembered, something through which he’d combed in his early attempts at strengthening Ban’dinoriel, before he’d ever touched the Void. 

Before Nicanor had presented him with the journal of the Grand Astromancer.

Sighing, Umbric closed the tome with a soft creaking thump of many aged pages. They’d smuggled that journal out of the library, he and Nicanor. It was obvious at once why it was labeled forbidden: The things described by Solarian, the consultations with eldritch fiends and the visions granted to her by the Void Lords, the detailed passages on the marrying of fel and Void and the pages and pages of sensitive magical instruments she’d crafted herself with which to extract energy from the powerful purple-black crystals, the runes she herself had written to work the spells and complicated magical calculations featuring the many precise angles and measurements of power needed by participants… It was the stuff of dreams ﹣ and nightmares. The volatile combination of Void and fel magicks had driven her mad, the writing increasingly erratic and sloppy as it hurtled towards the back cover. Solarian had become well and truly possessed by the end; Umbric didn’t think that what had died in Tempest Keep was even an elf at all.

It had been the most amazing find, and he’d treated Nicanor to an exquisitely expensive dinner for it. 

_Nicanor._ Umbric wondered if Nicanor had ever read the book he needed, if he still remembered it and could help him. A ward, even one purposely designed to subvert current technomagic, wasn’t inherently treasonous, right? 

Right?

Perhaps he would ask his friend later in the day, when Diel Thalas was emptier and they could disappear to the back rooms that were Nicanor and Shani’s home, away from prying eyes and listening ears. 

* * *

He arrived at Diel Thalas later than usual, having been stopped by Alleria on the way. She had pledged a score of ren’dorei for the forthcoming Battle of Nazjatar ﹣ nevermind that they didn’t have a score to spare, and pulling them from other posts would only be a headache that Umbric, not Alleria, would have to deal with ﹣ and told him that two tidesages had been stationed in Mezzamere as of that morning. Snippishly, he’d asked her if she’d thought to petition for tidesages at any other camps housing ren’dorei, and when she’d said she had not, he’d clenched his fists so tightly that the nail marks still stung his palms as he sat down at the inn. 

“We were getting worried about you, magister,” piped Tysiel from the bar. “You’re normally much earlier than this.” 

“I’m afraid I lost track of time reading,” he offered. It wasn’t exactly a lie, he told himself. “Is the kitchen still open?”

She nodded. “Made too much pudding.”

Umbric raised an eyebrow. In Quel’Thalas _pudding_ was a dessert, thick and creamy and sweet. He’d learned the hard way that in Stormwind _pudding_ meant something else. 

“Atynar made it for Shani,” she said apologetically, which didn’t really answer his question but also at the same time did. “She said she had a craving.” Atynar was the best at unfamiliar dishes and made quite a lot of Stormwindian foods palatable to the curious ren’dorei. If Atynar had made savory pudding, it couldn’t be too terrible. Hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, Umbric gestured for the woman to bring him a plate. 

He’d had blood pudding in Ironforge, when he’d visited with Valeera… He hadn’t liked it much but she had. Had scooped a generous helping onto a warm slice of freshly baked spice bread and closed her eyes in bliss once it touched her tongue. 

If Nicanor couldn’t help him, perhaps Umbric could visit Ironforge again. He was sure he could find the little bookshop Valeera had taken him to, with the funny little priest who’d conspiratorially sold him an innocent book on the history of the dwarven city, three on illegal magic, and one hilariously written erotic novel.

“Seen Nicanor?” 

Tysiel smacked Dewil’s hand away as he attempted to reach over the counter. “Shani’s too nice to kick you out, but I’m not,” she snapped. “Behave.”

Dewil, clearly intoxicated and a ruddy shade of violet, merely giggled. “Tysi, c’mooon,” he whined. Aevedos, one stool over, scowled into his tankard.

“It was a lot quieter at the bar before you started drinking here.”

Dewil flashed him a fangy grin. “Nobody at the bar was this pretty before either.”

“Flirt with Aevedos somewhere else, please.” Tysiel stood on her toes to reach one of the top shelf wines ﹣ Umbric always took wine with dinner ﹣ and ignored Dewil’s drunken sputtering and Aevedos’s irritated glower. Pouring into a clean glass, she turned to the magister with a sort of finality that brokered no argument from the other two and said, “I have not seen Nicanor.” She placed the glass and the bottle before him. 

“Why does he get the whole bottle?” Dewil complained.

“Shani wasn’t feeling well earlier.” Tysiel kept herself firmly placed before Umbric and began searching for a napkin and silverware under the counter. “I think he’s in the back with her.” 

Umbric’s heart sank. “Is she alright?”

“Oh, yes.” Tysiel grinned brightly at him. “Babies are quite demanding even before they’re born. Keira’s given her some medicine to calm her stomach. I think Nicanor’s just worried.”

Umbric had been an only child, but one of his servants had been pregnant when he was younger. He remembered she had often suffered from nausea and fatigue as well before it had been born. “Aren’t we all.”

The barkeep kept smiling. “No reason to worry,” she assured him. “Everything is fine. You forget that some of us in the city are still healers.” 

He wasn’t convinced but he didn’t press. Keira had been a healer in Silvermoon and surely had delivered plenty of babies and attended their mothers. Surely she and Elestrae were keeping Shani under careful watch ﹣ Umbric didn’t know what the Void would do to a developing child. He knew that there existed people who had been chosen in the womb by the Light ﹣ wasn’t King Anduin one of them? ﹣ and those children were born blessed, destined to do great things by the naaru themselves. Did the Void do such things? Could a child be touched by the Void before it was even born? Umbric didn’t know. He didn’t think it had ever been done before.

When Atynar arrived with a large plate of pudding, he asked, “Isn’t this Shani’s dinner?”

His friend tapped the counter with one finger as if to say _That won’t get you out of eating it._ “Yeah, but I made a whole pan. Hers is in the ice box for later, don’t worry.”

It didn’t look like blood pudding. Umbric poked at it. “What is this?”

“Food,” Atynar deadpanned. “Good food.” He didn’t seem in the mood to humor Umbric’s usual aversion to new things. “There’s mushrooms in it. The little ones that you like.” 

Oh good. The larger ones, with the filmy gills running along the underside of their caps, made him gag. “Is it just you two tonight?” he wondered, separating a small piece from the rest.

“Mm.” Atynar watched with pursed lips until Umbric actually did eat the pudding, before slipping out behind the bar to accept a stack of dishes from a helpful Elestrae. Tysiel leaned in furtively and murmured, “I told him not to worry too, but he is. You know how he is.” 

The Atynar who worked for the spymaster was a blank slate, his chiseled features unmoving and emotionless, but in Diel Thalas he, like the rest of them, was safe. Free to wear his heart on his sleeve, to laugh at Dewil’s unsuccessful attempts to woo Tysiel and make jokes at Aevedos’s expense and worry openly about his best friend and his wife. On his way back with his dishes, Umbric waved him over. 

“I drink ginger tea when my stomach is upset. It’s supposed to help.”

“Does it?”

He nodded. Atynar looked thoughtful.

“Perhaps I should pick some up. Where did you get it?”

And Umbric averted his eyes, suddenly wishing he hadn’t said anything. “It was a gift,” he murmured. He’d almost forgotten that it had been Valeera who’d brought him that little tin, Valeera who usually prepared his tea. Nausea rarely struck him unless he was eating, and he didn't often eat without her anymore. “I think it’s pandaren.” There were strange characters on the lid and a handpainted pink flower. 

If any of the ren’dorei had been giving him gifts, Atynar would know about it. Thankfully, he did not pry, did not bring up Valeera. “I’ll look for it. It’s called _ginger_ tea?” He pronounced the strange word carefully. It was not a Thalassian one, or Common for that matter.

“Ginger tea,” Umbric affirmed. 

Atynar chewed his lip for a moment before nodding. “Alright. I’ll stop by Little Pandaria in the morning. Thank you.” 

“Of course.” Umbric supposed he could have gone himself ﹣ all he had to do was show the tin, he supposed, and ask if one of the bears knew where he could buy more. It wasn’t a far walk from Diel Thalas. Or perhaps one of the higher end tea shops in the Trade District would carry it, as a fancy import. But he thought it more important that Atynar do it. There wasn’t much the man _could_ do, really, for Shani, and she meant a great deal to him. Perhaps buying something to soothe her would do them both some good. 

* * *

Whenever he saw red, Umbric’s breath caught in his throat. Furiously he’d chastise himself. It wasn’t Valeera ﹣ he hadn’t seen her at all since he’d returned to Stormwind, not even in the Keep ﹣ and what did it matter if it was? She was clearly done with him. 

The pandaren decorated a lot with the color red. Supposedly it brought good fortune.

_You shouldn’t have gotten attached. She was only supposed to keep your bed warm._

Perhaps because it had been so long… It felt wrong to reach out to the ren’dorei in that way, like trying to bed a family member. And it wasn’t as though anyone else was eager for the chance to jump into bed with him, and Umbric wasn’t even sure he’d give in if they did. He didn’t… find many of them attractive, to be honest. What could compare to the beauty and elegance of an elf? Who else had hair that fell like water down their backs, had such alluring jewel tone eyes, was made of lean corded muscle and long, slender fingers that wrapped just right around his cock? Who else would bruise so prettily and blush with abandon at the absolutely filthy Thalassian he’d whisper in their ear? 

He wasn’t very good at compartmentalizing, was the problem. He didn’t think he could _just_ sleep with someone. Not as long as he and Valeera had, not without feeling something.

_You weren’t supposed to feel anything. You should have ended it then._

He should have. It was his own fault he felt like this. 

But… he hadn’t been just a fuck to her either. She _stepped on him,_ for Void’s sake, but then she’d slept at the opposite end of his tent, and only crawled into his bed to… chase away a nightmare. She’d held him all night, and was there when he’d woken up. She hadn’t touched him at all. Surely, if she’d only wanted sex, she would have fucked him that night. 

And then there were times they didn’t have sex at all. Times they merely sat together and shared a meal, or talked, and while the talking wasn’t serious or enlightening it had been… fun. Valeera’s eyes didn’t glaze over when he went on at length about his research, even when she clearly didn’t understand a word he was saying. If anything, she seemed… _enthralled_ by his passion. She teased him, for his sleepwear and his many side tangents and the wards on his tent, but she rarely poked fun at his appetite, and never at his nightmares. Didn’t grumble when they woke her up, no matter how often, and never complained if he lost control of the Void as he slept. Surely she would have, if all she’d wanted was sex. Surely she wouldn't have put up with it.

She wouldn’t sit in absolute silence at the table until he began to eat, wouldn’t fret over the empty calories of conjured foods, wouldn’t worry about if he got enough sleep, if she’d thought he was just a fuck. 

She wouldn’t have visited him in his sick room in Boralus, or seen his fancy flat in Stormwind, if he was just a fuck. He knew he wouldn’t have done those things, if that was all she was. 

It had been seeing her in red and gold, disguised as a Silvermoon alchemist, that had piqued his interest. She had looked… so terribly beautiful there in the Zuldazari jungle, piling her gently frizzing hair neatly atop her head in a classic style. The precision with which he watched her apply her makeup ﹣ just enough to accentuate the almond shape of her eyes and curve of perfect, full lips. He’d thought about her all day after she’d stomped off into Dazar’alor, not just how she looked but how she’d acted when they were sailing. She was an enigma, speaking mainly when spoken to and spending her time either on deck in the sun and out of the way, or in her cabin sequestered away from the troops and the crew. She didn’t interact much with anyone, and for the most part, no one seemed to want her to. And he’d understood that. 

No one really wanted him around either. No one especially trusted him or his ren’dorei, and it seemed, for all her closeness to the spymaster, the common troops didn’t particularly trust her either. 

Perhaps, what had first drawn him to Valeera Sanguinar, truly, was that they were both outsiders among people who needed them but didn’t especially _want_ them. 

_That doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want you anymore._

Umbric wondered what Nicanor would say, if he were to tell him. Nicanor had always been better with people than he was. 

Little Pandaria was bustling at this time of day, the noon sun high and hot in the sky. Umbric watched from across the pond as merchants hawked their wares, shouting in both Pandaren and Common, as bits of silver and gold exchanged hands, as goods passed from one furry paw to another. They’d set up their little home on the smaller side of Olivia’s Pond, above and before the little waterfall in the shadow of the Keep. Umbric had heard Aysa Cloudsinger lived there but he had yet to see the pandaren _do_ anything besides meditate on the edge of the tiny town. She rarely came to war meetings, rarely put forth any effort. 

Umbric wondered what it must be like to be her. To be so assured of his people’s health and safety to not have to bother with tedious meetings and provoking arguments, to not be stretched so thin as to have cause never to leave the safety of the city. He wondered what it must be like to come from a people so well liked that even the most uptight, reserved, and even racist of Stormwind’s elite flocked to the sprawling little town in the shadow of the castle, desperate for pandaren spices and silks and lacquerware, for exotic health tonics and panaceas, to lay themselves out bare and trust talented pandaren masseurs to work their special chi magicks through every muscle and joint. 

It must have been nice. 

The pandaren were generally an unassuming folk, even of the ren’dorei. Like most people, they didn’t _prefer_ to bear witness to the awesome power of the Void but they were more… tolerant, than others. Diel Thalas was very close to Little Pandaria, and from time to time pandren stopped in. They understood, Umbric supposed, what it was like ﹣ to suddenly find themselves out in and known to the wider world, one they hadn’t seen in centuries and didn’t quite understand anymore. 

He heard the quiet rustle of boots through short, manicured grass before he saw her, and his heart began to beat fast, but kept his eyes forward. Watched as a portly pandaren man emerged from a restaurant so close to the pond's bank it was almost in it and toddled over to a sturdy blackwood table, placed two steaming bowls before a human couple. Pressed his hands together in front of his chest and bowed, and then took two steps back before shuffling off. 

“Hi,” came the voice, low and hesitant. Such a different tone than the last time she’d spoken to him, but no less guarded. No less wary. 

It felt _right,_ to have her beside him again; a subdued heat blossomed in his belly, trickling through his limbs and swelling in his chest. He wondered what she wanted. He wondered how long she’d stay. 

“Hi, Valeera,” he replied softly. 

For several moments neither of them spoke, the space between them anxious and fragile, until finally Valeera said, “How long have you been back in the city?”

A shrug. “Two weeks? Maybe sixteen days.”

“Ah.” And then, “Sorry I missed you. I was on assignment.”

_She was avoiding you._

He didn’t know what possessed him to ask. She’d never answered him before. “Where?”

A pause. 

“Broken Isles. I had some work to finish there, and I dropped in to see an old friend.” 

“Mm.” Umbric didn’t question what sort of “old friend” lived in the Broken Isles. From his understanding, an “old friend” usually meant a contact in espionage, things way above his paygrade and more classified than his clearance gave him privilege to question. “How are things there?”

The breeze played with her hair, golden strands swaying gently against the white marble backdrop of the castle. “Quieter,” she offered. “Val’sharah is much the same as ever, though.”

Val’sharah. Umbric had never been there, but he’d heard it housed the ruin of the Temple of Elune where the great green dragon Ysera had been slain in her madness. That it was still overrun by the Emerald Nightmare. It was mentioned quite a lot in briefings, and the druidic organizations working there asked often for aid, now that the Cenarion Circle had moved to Silithus. 

“A shame,” he said quietly. “I pray one day that it heal and be a holy place once more.”

“It is still a holy place,” Valeera murmured, “if one knows where to look.” 

The human couple had flagged down a passing waiter, who was patiently demonstrating how to use chopsticks to consume their noodles. They were laughing, unable to hold the sticks properly, noodles flopping back uselessly into red lacquered bowls. One of them managed a bite, and at the pandaren’s urging slurped the noodles noisily. The waiter bowed at them, and gently placed wrapped silverware on their table, amused and unoffended. Perhaps it was easier with fat, furry fingers.

Umbric felt a soft pressure at his wrist, the gentle press of two fingers, reluctant to let go and leaving after a moment too long. He wanted to reach out, to keep her hand on his.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Valeera murmured. “I think we need to talk.” 

  
  
  


“Somewhere” turned out to be the Keep, which Valeera entered without hesitation, the guards ushering her through a large door to an area out of bounds to the public without issue. It was quieter, in this part of the castle. The clomping sounds of plated guards were less frequent, and servants more prominent. Umbric had been in this area only once before, invited to a dinner he barely tasted with Alleria Windrunner and the High King. 

But Valeera did not turn down the wide hall he remembered, instead taking a smaller one further on, and up a set of narrow stairs he didn’t think were quite common knowledge. There were more guards on this floor, wearing the shiny blue and gold of the kingsguard, but Valeera paid them no mind and while they raised an eyebrow at Umbric, no one stopped them. Down another hall, this one decorated with painstakingly painted portraits that at any other time Umbric would have stopped to examine in detail. Old kings, it seemed, and queens, little princelings and princesses. Silvermoon had such a gallery, he knew, deep within the Sunspire. 

The sheer volume of history crammed into this hall was fascinating, and Umbric found himself temporarily distracted before a large portrait of a man with a full head of hair the color of good coffee, pulled high off his head and tied neatly with a length of leather. He wore full plate, silver in contrast to the gold Umbric associated with the Alliance. A thick scar bisected his face, and his nose looked to have been broken at least twice despite the artist's attempts at prettying it. In his meaty hands he held the twin pommels of a sword Umbric knew well. Had seen carried by little King Anduin more than once. Its glow was not the same bright white of the Light with which he was familiar, but a deep, burning orange. 

Umbric had never met Varian Wrynn, and gazing at that portrait, at Wrynn’s steely blue eyes and hard frown, he didn’t think he would have wanted to. 

“This way,” said Valeera, a ways ahead, and, with one last look at Stormwind’s fallen king, Umbric followed. 

Up one more set of stairs and down a short hall found them before another door, this one guarded by a single soldier clad in blue and gold. She nodded to them and turned the handle, and Valeera strode in as though she belonged. Umbric heard the soft click of the latch behind them, noted that Valeera was quick to turn the lock. 

A cursory glance told him that this was a private suite of rooms. They were in the solar, furnished prettily with delicately crafted, sturdy furniture of a distinctly Thalassian style. A low table sat just off center, a plush cushion placed before it and two or three more stacked to one side. A couch stood farther back, a thick woolen blanket draped over the back. One wall was lined with bookshelves, upon which lay books written more in Common than Thalassian, and various trinkets of Thalassian origin such as a little mosaiced music box and colored crystals ﹣ depleted of mana ﹣ that winked in the noon day sun streaming through a window framed by gauzy scarlet curtains. A vase reminiscent of pandaren ceramics stood proudly upon its own little table, cushioned by a silk scarf and filled to bursting with round, fragrant flowers. A large and expensive-looking rug covered the stone floor, leaving a twelve inch gap before the cavernous, unlit fireplace. A heavy door, just to the side, must have led to the bed and bathing chambers. 

Valeera awaited no order, boldly leaning against the wall and unlacing her boots. Placed them on a small dark wooden stand made for expressly for the purpose. Made her way in socked feet to the short, square table and sat, pulled a cushion from the stack and placed it close to her. Poured two cups of tea from the waiting set. 

_This was where Valeera lived._

Umbric had never been here, he thought dully, toeing off his own violet slippers and setting them gently on the stand. The carpet was fine and soft beneath his feet as he took it all in. Valeera lived in a lavish apartment that put his own to shame, in the heart of the castle, almost directly above the king’s own chambers. 

_The perks of fucking the High King._

The tea was piping hot and steamed gently as he wrapped his hands around the cup. For an hour ﹣ though realistically Umbric was sure it was no more than a few moments ﹣ they drank in silence. A formality which felt somehow wrong to break, as if being in the castle warranted the following through of rules and decorum. It was Valeera who broke the silence. 

“I’m ill prepared for company,” she said, staring almost determinedly ahead, into the empty hearth. “I don’t entertain much.” 

“Neither do I,” Umbric said evenly, “yet you make do.” 

A quiet exhale, as she blew on the tea. “I haven’t let anyone in my chambers in a long time,” she confessed. Umbric brought his own cup to his lips; the tea was smooth, light and not terribly perfumed. There was no milk but Valeera did have sugar, and gently he mixed a few cubes into the liquid, watching as the tea soaked in and melted them through. His spoon thundered against the sides as he stirred, ringing in his ears.

Valeera exhaled again, louder this time. A real confession with some weight. “I haven’t let anyone into my _life_ in a long time.” 

This Umbric expected. Every elf carried with them the trauma of loss. Some never recovered. Even strong, iron Valeera was not immune, it seemed, but the rules of social convention prevented him from asking any questions. He didn’t think, even if she had loved him, that they had the sort of relationship where one could delicately pry into the other’s past. 

“Neither have I,” he said again. He hadn’t had the time, and in those rare moments he did, he found himself surrounded only by ren'dorei. 

She shook her head. The words seemed firmly stuck in her throat, unwilling to expose themselves to the open air, and Umbric wondered why she was bothering. She’d already left him. She didn’t need to guilt him, and make it worse. 

“I…” She huffed, and something about the action must have stirred something in her because the corners of her lips twitched. “I lost someone very dear to me. To the Burning Legion.” The teacup met its saucer with a loud clink as she put it down. “That day. That morning, the last… something reminded me of him. Out of nowhere. And it hurt.”

And this was something Umbric understood intimately. Seeing Shade’s singular lonely form in Nazjatar had hurt, and glimpsing Celosel’s dagger on Atynar’s hip. Aowyn silhouetted by the light of the forge, swinging her father’s hammer. Gazing at himself in the mirror and his mother’s eyes staring back at him. 

“And then _you…”_ Valeera swallowed. “In all the time I knew him, he never asked me for a single thing. Not once. Nothing except to st…” And here she choked, and her eyes grew glassy. Umbric was struck by the thought that she looked so _fragile_ sitting there, as though if he reached out and touched her she would shatter. Glimpses of emotions he’d only seen in the corner of his eye, heard in quiet crying in the middle of the night when his less pleasant dreams woke him. Sometimes when they were together, sitting closely like this and just enjoying the company of each other, Valeera’s eyes would cloud over with a faint, faraway look, and when asked what was the matter she would lie, insist she was fine. 

A memory came to him then. The same stricken look the first and only time Umbric had ever called her Val, wiped clean a moment later and accompanied by a carefully worded _“I would rather you didn’t call me that.”_ Had she once been Val to this person? Something only he called her, an indulgence she allowed no one else?

Beside him Valeera was composed again, sitting a little straighter now, fingers clamped so tightly around the teacup he could see the whites of her knuckles. She inhaled through her nose deeply before speaking again. “You have to understand how it felt, to find out you’d be using me. I thought… Well. Nevermind.”

Using… Ohh, that was what he’d been afraid of. He should have known his words would be taken that way. It was exactly the reason he’d bristled when Atynar suggested it. 

“Valeera…” 

“I’m not good at this,” she went on. “I’ve been told I’m actually rather stupid at…” She gestured between them. “But I thought, that if you’d wanted something from me, you would have made yourself clear sooner than this.” And her eyes hardened then, the water shining like ice along her lashes. “You _should_ have said something sooner than this.”

“So you would leave?” Umbric didn’t know why he said it, why his own temper flared in cadence. She grit her teeth.

“Yes.” 

Umbric wasn’t any good at “this” either. His parents and the Wards were the only examples he had of proper relationships, and they were in no way alike. His parents had been distant with each other, rarely touching and never embracing. The day the Scourge invaded and his father died was the one memory Umbric had of them having any real contact, his father cradled in his mother’s lap and the blood from his missing arm soaking her robes. Nicanor and Shani, in contrast, were open with their affections. There was no doubt that the two were married and very much in love, and Umbric had observed dozens of chaste kisses pressed to cheeks, gentle strokes along arms and down spines, and countless shared looks that brought little secret smiles to their faces. Had watched, their first Winter Veil in Stormwind, as Nicanor held mistletoe over Shani’s head and kissed her in full view of all the ren’dorei, Stormwind, and the Void itself, both of them laughing against each other’s mouths and Shani’s hands cupping her husband’s face. 

He wasn’t like Nicanor. He had never been so open, had never _felt_ with every fiber of his being the way his friend did. Could not imagine strolling around the city with his arm around a person’s waist the way the Wards and countless humans did. 

But Valeera made him want to. She was by no means the only person he’d ever been with, but she was the only one he’d ever felt particularly romantic toward. Sometimes when they were together he was overcome by such a strong urge to hold her that it wasn't propriety that stopped him, but his own shock.

“I didn’t want you to leave.”

And Valeera bit her lip, hard, the imprint of her teeth mocking him as she said sharply, “I’m pleased to hear I was too good a cocksleeve for you to waste.”

He’d said something like that once, one of many explicit whispers he’d fed her in the heat of the moment. He didn’t feel good about it right now. “That’s not why!” he snapped. 

“It’s fine.” Her tone was crisp. “I’m not… _angry,_ but it would have been nice if﹣”

“That’s _not_ why.”

“Then why?!”

_Ana'eran surfal._

The last person he’d said the words to were his mother, her eyes frantic and her face pale, and his father, dying in her arms. He’d whispered he loved them before running like his mother told him to. Like a coward. 

Umbric folded his hands on the table, blunt fingernails digging into his flesh. Unfolded them, tapping irritably on the wood. Reached out, barely stopping short of smacking with the force of it, and cautiously touched the very ends of his fingertips to the outside of her arm. 

“Because,” he said, careful to mimic her exact inflection and tone, “you... you are very dear to me.” Hoped she understood, because he couldn’t bring himself to say he loved her only for her to push him away. 

_Stupid. Stupid man, you are._

“Oh. _Oh.”_ Valeera stared at his fingers, just barely brushing her sleeve enough to press against the limb beneath. A beautiful sort of blush bloomed over her cheeks. The ice in her eyes gave way again to water. 

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

There was a horrifying moment where Umbric thought she would push him away anyway. Valeera was not Shani. Would never loudly proclaim her feelings for him or anyone in front of Stormwind and the Light itself. Maybe would not even admit them to him… 

And then she scrubbed a hand over her face, and the other crept slowly over her arm to touch his own fingers, press them more firmly against her. She hid her eyes from him for a long time, and this was not the same way in which he’d watched her fall apart before, the blissed out gleam that passed over her as he tore her down to her soft jelly center, the laughter bubbling on her lips after a particularly good fuck, the naked abandon as she lay with him, arching into his kisses and singing praises to his cock. This was a wall Umbric never knew Valeera had, close to her heart and unreachable until this very moment.

She broke quietly, like the first drops of rain in a summer storm. Her shoulders sagged as the deluge washed over her, closed in on herself, rigid in the way he always was after a particularly terrifying nightmare. A self-contained ecosystem of pain and grief and relief. 

Umbric wasn’t sure what to do. He had no frame of reference for this. Nicanor, he supposed, if put in such a situation, would pull Shani to him, would wrap his arms around her shoulders and cradle her head beneath his chin, tangle one hand in her hair and stroke down her back with the other, murmuring sweet comforts until she calmed. Nicanor and Shani, he thought, were something out of a storybook. Real people didn’t act like that. 

Valeera held him sometimes, late at night. Would fit her entire body alongside his, pull him into her lap, and rub slow, soothing circles against his skin with the flat of her palm. But that didn’t seem right either. 

How often had he done that, though? Hefted her bodily on top of him and run his hands over every inch of her? Surely it wasn’t so different, when the intention was comfort rather than sex? It didn’t feel the same though, as Umbric thought it over. He didn’t think he should move her at all. 

He wondered how many times she’d broken down like this. How many other people had sat with her, if any. She clutched at the fingers on her arm like a lifeline, and he gently scrunched his hand to be able to stroke one of her own with his thumb. It was this small action that seemed to bring her back to herself. The clouds cleared, leaving behind only the faint scent of salt and sadness, and when she finally removed her hand from her face, only the dampness of her lashes was left to suggest she’d ever fallen apart at all. 

The teacup clinked against its saucer as she brought it to her lips, taking a rather large, shaky sip and hissing when she burned her tongue. Dimly, Umbric marveled that the tea was still hot at all before realizing that this had realistically taken only a few minutes. From the time he’d sat down to right now, perhaps just eight or nine minutes had passed.

Was it really so easy? Was that all it took to bring her back to him?

Beneath the table her knee bumped into his, and stayed there. She huffed, her cheeks puffing as she exhaled. “Then why… what did you…” It wasn’t like Valeera to stumble over herself. To be flustered. Finally, she faced him ﹣ the first time she met his eyes since they’d set foot in this room ﹣ and murmured, “Where should I look from, so I can see things from the same side as you?”

Umbric’s breath caught. A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed with some difficulty. There was a fire roaring inside of him; he felt hot all over. She was looking at him tenderly, her full attention shifting first from one eye to the other, as if she could understand by simply divining the shades of blue in his irises. Her hand covered his own now, squeezing gently at the sides. He thought, in this moment, that he could tell her anything, and she would listen with an open mind and without judgment. 

So he did. 

He told her about his frustrations with the Alliance, the slavedriver that was Mathias Shaw and the other races’ reluctance to associate with his ren’dorei. About Greymane’s impractical demands and Alleria’s detachment, his suspicions that the ranger cared very little for the ren’dorei as a whole and only about how their good deeds justified her own dangerous, untrained fascination with the Void. He told her about Turalyon, and how the Light within him seemed to flare more brightly whenever Umbric spoke, reacting to the fury he kept so carefully contained. 

He told her about Whisper and the senseless way in which she’d died in Nazjatar, the measures that hadn’t been taken, and how even the Lord Admiral agreed that something was wrong. He told her about Celosel being stabbed by a poisoned knife in Arathi, and Rauvir and Zarra drowning in Dazar’alor, about Selina’s sacrifice in Nazmir and Mastus’s for Falania. Quoted the treaty that bore the immovable signatures of both himself and the High King, and how the Alliance had fallen short of all they’d promised them.

He told her about the order he’d had to secure for the Wards so that the ren’dorei would have a last home of their own in Stormwind, and how he feared it would be ripped away from them and Diel Thalas shut down. Nicanor was a _good_ runeweaver, and his immaculate memory put him in high demand. Shani’s mind was special too, and she was the only one of them skilled in magical mathematics, the only one able to perform the more complicated feats of spellcraft, the old spells akin to rituals and occultism. Shaw had more than once put in a request to dispatch Nicanor here or there, and the Admirality wanted Shani, and Umbric had fought them at every turn. And now, with the conception of their child and the Alliance pushing farther and farther into Nazjatar, and spreading themselves more thinly over the Eastern Kingdoms and Kul Tiras, he worried more than ever that something would happen to one or both of them, that the child would never be born or never know its parents. That once it _was_ born, the protection granted to the Wards would vanish in a puff of smoke, and it would be left behind as they were sent across the world. 

He talked until it hurt, until his throat was raw and his eyes stung and he was heaving air in such great quantities his lungs burned. And Valeera listened, patiently, sometimes frowning and fidgeting uncomfortably. But she listened, for perhaps the first time since they had met. In the first real, serious discussion they’d ever had, she listened to him. 

When he had blown himself out she gave him a moment, perhaps to see if there was more. She had not interrupted him. Had respected his need to talk unfettered. Seemed more in her element, when it was him breaking down.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Hey. Take a deep breath. Breathe.”

And he did.

“I hadn’t…” Valeera chewed her lip. “I’ve heard, of course. I’ve heard you. But never so plainly.” A wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. “What happened in Nazjatar with your operative… Jaina was right to call it out. There was a time where her judgment was clouded and her promises words on the wind, but that was a long time ago. I think, if you would speak to her so plainly, she might agree to fund a contingent of tidesages for your ren’dorei. She listens, if you have concerns.”

_She threatened you in Thalassian. She made you feel unsafe._

It was better that he knew she spoke it. He would not be careless around her, would keep his mouth shut. 

_She did not listen to you. Those two druids were found not at fault for Whisper’s death._

And the first priest was court martialed according to Kul Tiran law and faced a charge of medical neglect.

The whispers grumbled when he refuted them. They disliked being challenged, even when he was right, even if they later changed their mind. Lately it seemed they, like Umbric, believed the Alliance to be guilty of all wrongs. It took an astonishing amount of mental gymnastics to keep his cool, to not blindly believe.

“﹣would be _most_ upset to hear about it,” Valeera was saying. “Anduin is a kind soul; the death of any soldier wounds him deeply. I’m sure, if you asked him for a private audience ﹣ _without_ Greymane ﹣ he would be more than willing to work with the ren’dorei to benefit us all.”

_By the boy king’s order, you’ve lost thirty-nine. By comparison, you have lost more than anyone else._

“I would never be granted a private audience with the High King.” It was hard to keep the derision from his voice. “I would end up before the old worgen. Or Shaw.”

“Shaw is… difficult, I agree,” Valeera said evasively. “But it pains him to lose his operatives. I think he would understand, if he were to look more closely at your people’s deaths.” Valeera knew the spymaster better than anyone, Umbric thought, but he could not bring himself to believe her. “But I think speaking to Anduin directly would be best.”

_You are ren’dorei. Would anyone even allow you alone in a room with the Light-blessed High King?_

“How do you suggest I do that?” And it was harder now, to keep the bitterness off his tongue. “Even General Feathermoon speaks to a council of him, Greymane, and Shaw.”

“He will grant you one if I ask him to.”

Silence.

_She wouldn’t. She’s already made clear that she won’t interfere. Isn’t that why she left?_

“What.”

Valeera tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I do not speak at meetings,” she said evenly. “I am a leader of nothing, and my information is not for certain ears. But I speak privately with Anduin quite often. I will not present your case for you, but I can at least guarantee the opportunity for you to do so.”

_She’ll fuck the boy king, is what she’s saying. And then you’ll owe her a favor too._

Umbric doubted Valeera was sleeping with the little lion, and she didn’t work like that.

 _Her entire life is built on the exchanging of favors and information. She didn’t move into chambers like_ **_this_ ** _because of her own merit. What can she do that the king can’t contract SI:7 for?_

He didn’t have an answer to that besides the obvious.

“﹣not revoke the Wards’ order. Anduin very firmly believes everyone should have a place to call home, and that’s what Diel Thalas is for the ren’dorei. The original wording lists the Wards as its proprietors, doesn’t it? No one can take them out of it without Anduin’s say-so, and he will not say yes, I promise you. Especially not when it means tearing apart a family.” Valeera sipped her tea, long gone cold. “Family is very important to him.”

_What does little King Wrynn know of families? He is unmarried and his parents are dead._

“Before you leave here, submit a request for a private audience,” Valeera advised. After a half moment, she added, “I will deliver it myself, if you sign it.”

 _You must do all the work. She will only grease the hinges._ _She will not hand anything to you the way everything has been handed to her._

Umbric arched a delicate dark eyebrow. “You will?” 

“I do not promise it will happen soon enough for your liking,” she warned. “But. If I ask him, he will do it. There is very little I can say that the king will dismiss.” She frowned here, but Umbric didn’t think it was for him.

_She will get him to agree while his cock is in her mouth. Do you really want to use her like that?_

He pushed the mental image away, lip curling in disgust. Valeera’s relationship with the High King perplexed him, and he didn’t want to think of her like that.

“Why?” he found himself asking. “Why do you have such control over him?”

A laugh tumbled out of her mouth then, short and slightly bitter. “No one _controls_ Anduin,” she said earnestly. “Believe me, we’ve all tried.”

A scowl. “Why does he listen to you?” He didn’t want to have to say it, because no matter the truth it was extremely offensive. She would probably smack him, and he didn’t think the hit would be the kind that led to sex.

“Because I…” Valeera rolled her tongue between her teeth, considering, and finally started again. “I’ve known Anduin since he was a little boy. He trusts me.”

“Because you raised him?” he guessed, and Valeera stiffened. 

_She_ **_did_ ** _fuck a king. Not this one, maybe, but the previous king. He gifted her this luxurious apartment and her position, and the little lion listens to her because she spread her legs for his father._

“I suppose… you could say that. Many of us raised him, in some way or another.” 

_But she mothered him. Dressed his scrapes and kissed his bruises, read him stories and soothed him after scary dreams. Does the little king know why she’s in his life? Does he know she was his father’s mistress?_

Sometimes it was remarkably difficult to ignore the whispers, but Umbric found it much easier when he thought they were grasping at straws, making connections that weren’t there. By the whispers’ logic, Mathias Shaw and his ridiculous mustache were the king’s father. Hadn’t the spymaster been around since before the boy’s birth?

 _The boy king is tall and blonde and beautiful, more beautiful than a normal human male. Valeera left Quel’Thalas, and Lord Sanguinar never acknowledged a living daughter. Was she banished for loving a human? It isn’t uncommon_ ﹣ _don’t the Windrunners have a similar history? Even the great Daelin Proudmoore was rumored to have a half elven bastard._

Umbric gritted his teeth and tried to bring his attention back to what Valeera said before. The Lord Admiral, she’d told him, was approachable, and the little lion. It was like trying to hold water; the whispers were too loud, clamoring for consideration in the finite space that was his brain. They drowned out his own inner voice, until they were all he heard. 

_Valeera won’t help you. She’ll turn on you just as Alleria Windrunner did._

_She’ll leave you for the boy. Why would she be satisfied with you when she’s had the cock of kings?_

_The little lion would never disobey his mother. Have her touch the Void and she’ll obey your every command, and then so will he._

_Use her to corrupt the boy king. Watch the Void overpower his Light, and if he survives you will control all the Alliance._

_She’s too close to Shaw. She’ll whisper in his ear and SI:7 will storm your flat, and drag you away in the night with a sack over your head. You’ll rot in the dungeons for trusting her._

_She lies she lies she lies._

Through the fog he felt a pleasant touch on each side of his face, soothing the burning flesh. A gentle pressure against his forehead, and a quick but faint scent of florals as a curtain of gold entered his vision. He saw twin emeralds filled with concern, and it took several moments before the whispers abated enough that he could discern the sounds emanating from moving lips.

“﹣ric? Umbric, are you alright?”

Umbric blinked slowly. His head felt muggy; it was like being pulled through water, the cold darkness a comfort until he swam closer to the surface and the light.

“Umbric?”

The more she spoke to him the quieter the Void became, the more it ebbed back into the recesses of his mind. He pressed a hand to his temple, hard. In its wake the Void left a vague, throbbing emptiness. 

Valeera was still there. If he stretched his fingers he could just touch her hair. Tentatively, palm still plastered against his own skull, he brushed his knuckles against her solid warmth. Leaned into the caress of her thumbs along his cheeks. Valeera was real, and the whispers were not. The Void saw all possibilities and accepted them all as true, but that just wasn’t actually possible. 

It was _possible_ that Valeera was here, scarcely an inch from his face. Was whispering to him gently, not the cold, hard revelations of the Void but gentle, close comforts. Their knees banged together under the table as she shifted but she did not let go of him, even as a pained curse escaped her lips. 

“It’s not real,” she was saying. “Whatever you’re seeing is not real.” Her breath misted his own lips when she spoke, sweetened from all the tea, and the tip of her nose bumped against his. He counted the little puffs of air as she breathed, began breathing in sync.

“See you,” he managed, with his tied tongue. She was blurry so close, and his eyes crossed to look at her, but there she was. 

“Yeah. Yeah, you do,” she affirmed. The pressure on his forehead increased, just a little, and her mouth curved into a soft smile. “I’m real.”

It had gotten much easier to escape the Void’s more sinister visions with Valeera by his side. His one constant, his tether to the reality in which he was born.

Carefully he placed first one hand, and then the other, on her shoulders. The hair spilling over them was silky and cool, and when he pulled her to him she went willingly, fitting herself between his legs like she belonged there, one hand slipping from his cheek to just behind his ear and scratching lightly in the short dark hair she found there. He propped his chin on her shoulder, draped his arms around her waist. Reached up, splayed both palms flat against the expanse of her back. Bracketed her hips with both his thighs, trying to touch as much of her as he could at once. 

He was a ship, drifting slowly back to shore, guided back to reality in the safety of Valeera’s embrace. 

“Are you alright?” she murmured. _Are you back here with me?_

Umbric held her more tightly, feeling every fold of her clothing and beneath that, the lean muscles they encased. Leaned his head against hers, inhaling the sweet scent of her golden hair, the faint vanilla clinging to her skin. The Void had never felt so far away as it did when he was with Valeera.

“Yeah.” Closed his eyes, still grounded in this solar in Stormwind Keep, and the backs of his eyelids remained blessedly black. “Sometimes, when I’m too stressed…” He inhaled again, and breathed out through his mouth. “It can get bad.”

The fingers of her left hand gripped at his shirt. Her head dipped, and he felt a soft touch, gentler than her chin, on his shoulder. Her lips. “I can help with that,” she said after a moment. 

Yes, he thought. She could. She often did. 

“Oh?” And his heart was racing again but not from the visions. “Going to fuck me sane?” A little grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Valeera laughed, a subdued sensation he felt under his palms. “Something like that,” she teased. “Would it work?”

And that produced his own chuckle, dark and sultry, in the back of his throat. “Want to find out?” His fingers itched to slip up her shirt, to feel her against him skin to skin. To grind against and be grounded with her.

She arched against him, and though he couldn’t see her face he heard the devious little smirk in her voice. “I think I do.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valeera went to see Broll in Val'sharah. LiquidLobotomy and I shitpost all the time about the agony poor Broll has to endure in the form of Valeera's (and formerly also Varian's) emotional repression. I imagine Valeera shows up periodically and Broll's just like "what do I have to spell out for you this time?"
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked it!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric reminisces about his old life, argues with the whispers, and goes shopping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to LiquidLobotomy and she knows why. XD

The rainy season was upon them. Umbric had heard tales of faraway countries where it snowed in the winter, great fat globs of frozen water drifting gently from the grey skies and piling into a soft white carpet. As a boy the stories fascinated him ﹣ with its eternal spring, the landscape of Quel’Thalas was never changing, always the same warm golden-orange no matter the time of year. 

Winter was supposed to be cold, Umbric thought as he stomped through the slick streets, and with the wind blowing in off the sea it was perhaps a little chilly. A little muggy, in the great heat sink between the Burning Steppes and Stranglethorn Vale, but not terribly different from the rainy days in the Ghostlands, altogether. Of course nothing could compare to the… _experience_ of living in the Ghostlands, not really, but walking through the rain as he traversed Stormwind’s winding streets produced in him such a powerful wave of nostalgia that if he closed his eyes, for a moment it felt like being back at Dawnstar Spire.

Umbric never thought he’d miss _the Ghostlands,_ of all places, but there it was.

The guard who escorted him to the study did not enter with him, and the two stationed outside the door remained there, but Umbric was not alone when he stepped into the room. He supposed it was too much to ask, in the end. A private, one-on-one chat with the High King of the Alliance. 

The man in question stood on the far side of the room, bundled in a comfortable knit sweater before a tall, wide window in the style consistent with the architecture of Stormwind Keep. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth nearby. His golden head was inclined towards his companion, who Umbric recognized with a small jolt of his own heart as _Valeera._

As far as chaperones went, she was far better than Shaw, who Umbric had expected upon delivery of his summons. Dimly, he wondered if she’d fought Shaw for this, the right to sit in on this discussion. And what did that mean if she had?

Both Valeera and the boy king turned at his entrance, and a smile graced the child’s face. He gestured in the direction of a grand oak desk ﹣ no, to the couch just a step farther away, overstuffed and cozy. “Please, sit down, Magister Umbric. I’ve been told you have some concerns.”

Valeera didn’t acknowledge him as he bowed before the king ﹣ maybe she wasn’t allowed to. She didn’t seem to be a _participant_ in this, exactly. As she drew back from the High King, Umbric was struck by the sudden realization that, in the fire’s warm glow, that she and the king possessed silky gold tresses of nearly the same shade…

But even that unpleasant thought was driven from his mind by the _Light_ emanating from the High King as he crossed the room and settled himself somewhat heavily in the comfortable armchair opposite the couch. Small flickers and barely perceptible flashes whenever he moved, and the Void inside Umbric recoiled.

_The Light in him reacts to the Void in you._

The king winced slightly as he reached for the tea spread on the polished coffee table. Poured his own cup and pulled back, shifting slightly in his seat. He watched Umbric, as he mixed a small amount of some sort of thick, pale pink liquid from a thin vial into his tea. “Magister Umbric? It’s alright. Come join me.”

The office of the Grand Magister had been a strict, spartan place, an elegant desk of rich Amani oak its main feature, and no other place to sit than his own handsome chair. Rommath had never allowed Umbric, or anyone else for that matter, to step closer than the edge of the rich Kalimdoran carpet on which it all sat, regarding him coolly as he argued his case. 

Shaw, too, preferred his subordinates to stand. He did not seem to take as much pleasure in the squirming of his underlings, but the experience was always anxiety-inducing. Always felt like being on trial, a preview of what could possibly come to be.

Umbric had never been asked to sit before. Like an equal.

_You are not his equal. Even now he lords his holy power over you._

He sat, hoping his awkwardness did not show on his face.

Anduin took a luxurious sip of tea, face softening after a moment as though this ﹣ a cup of hot tea before a roaring fire ﹣ was an indulgence he rarely allowed himself. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  
  
  


It was difficult to concentrate on the conversation with so much Light pulsing in the room. Had the boy king always had an aura like this? Had this happened in the war meetings, and Umbric had just sat too far away to notice? 

No. Lord Commander Turalyon also sat as far from him as possible, and Umbric had always felt every flare of Light in reaction to the slightest perceived offense. 

Perhaps the rain bothered the High King. The weather could often aggravate old injuries. Wasn’t the boy afflicted with lasting pain from his time in Pandaria, an accident in his youth?

_He is blessed. He does not control it._

Anduin Wrynn _was_ blessed. Rumor said that the boy had been chosen by the naaru in the womb, that he had been gifted what men like Turalyon trained their entire lives for. That the Light permeated every cell of his being, swelled with the beat of his heart and made its home in his bones. He had not died in Pandaria, a fate which would have befallen any normal, mortal man. No. Anduin Wrynn had lived, emerged from his fatal accident unscathed ﹣ a divine intervention by the naaru themselves. 

_No, not unscathed. Watch him. See how he holds himself._

The king sat stark in his seat, shifting uncomfortably every so often, the plushness of the cushion unable to dull the ache that surely radiated from every muscle and joint in the damp rainy afternoon. His eyes were tense with discomfort and the soft smile ﹣ intended to put Umbric at ease ﹣ showed signs of strain.

What was it the king tipped into his tea? Some sort of painkiller? 

_He is a shell, bound to this life by the Light alone. A willing host, its vessel in this world._

What would happen then, if he were to lose his holy power? If he were to suffer its forcible extraction from his ravaged body? Would he still live?

_He would certainly die, empty as he is. But he would be a powerful ally if he were turned._

Umbric’s skin prickled uncomfortably as they spoke, an involuntary reaction to the proximity of so much holy fire. Anduin seemed unaware of the tiny blooms of Light, and if he experienced anything similar he said nothing to indicate and it did not show on his face.

“I think I understand,” the boy said, after some deliberation.

_He does not. All he sees are numbers, and you do not give enough of them._

“Do you still want your camp in Xibala?” the king asked abruptly, and Umbric startled. Why would Xibala be an issue?

“There is still much to be done there. It’s strategically placed between the city and the beach, and it’s my understanding that no one has been able to make use of the area due to an entity known as the Dark Chronicler.”

Anduin nodded. “Your ren’dorei have been most helpful in that regard,” he agreed. “Gelbin eagerly awaits all of the Xibala research you send his way. He says it’s fascinating.” A small, apologetic chuckle escaped him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand a lot of it myself but he assures me it’s both radical and important.”

Gelbin… The High Tinker of the gnomes? Umbric was unaware his research was of interest to anyone but himself. Gelbin Mekkatorque read his reports? 

But that would only make sense, he reasoned. Gnomes had always been at the forefront of technomagic and engineering, a position they could not hold if their instruments continued to fail as they had in Xibala.

_Their interest will wane once your research fixes that problem._

“I could reasonably see recalling the ren’dorei agents stationed in Zandalar so long as Xibala still stands,” the boy king offered. “And I don’t see a conflict if they were to take leave in Stormwind, at least until we begin the assault against Azshara.”

Recall the… There were twenty-eight ren’dorei committed to the Zandalar campaign, and the boy king was proposing Umbric bring nineteen of them home. 

“﹣would have to be shifted from Kul Tiras, probably,” the king went on. “This is still a crucial time in Zandalar, and unfortunately we do still need eyes on Dazar’alor and several major Zandalari settlements. But we don’t need as much manpower in Kul Tiras at the moment. I will speak with Jaina and Ms Fordragon and see what sort of arrangements can be made.”

Removing people from Kul Tiras would put a strain on those who stayed. The Alliance seemed to think of tears in reality as an easier, less taxing sort of portal service, and while it was true they required very little mana and recuperation time, traveling through the Void was dangerous. Insanity lingered there just out of sight, anxious and eager to assault the weak and exhausted, and that was something no normal mage understood.

“I would like restrictions on the number of portals asked of any individual ren’dorei,” Umbric blurted.

_Isn’t that the value of your people? Their manipulation of Void magics? What do you have, if you take that away?_

Anduin frowned. “I don’t… Please, explain. This is not the first time you’ve brought up portalling and I would like to understand why.”

Umbric was taken aback and frustrated. He sat straighter in his seat, his back stiffly parallel to the cushion. Common was such an inferior language ﹣ how was he supposed to take that? In Thalassian it would be blatantly obvious if this were a legitimate request or a snide insult.

_He will parrot your words to the other faction leaders. To men like Shaw. Choose them wisely._

The magister tried to put words to the problem. “Portals are…” He’d grown up around mages. His parents had been mages, and their parents, and their parents, from the time of Dath’Remar and even as far back as Old Kalimdor. It was easier to explain the differences to someone who already understood the process. 

Valeera had understood, when he’d explained to her. What had he said to her, all those months ago?

In slightly halting Common, stumbling over concepts he could not properly articulate outside of his native language, Umbric spoke. He explained that standard portals were so draining to conjure due to the nature of their creation, that a mage was in essence cleaving a path through the space-time of the Twisting Nether to a physical location they had already visited. It took time to forge such a connection, and portals of importance, which had to remain open, were often anchored to tangible beacons to avoid exhaustion and loss of consciousness. Mana depletion, while sometimes very painful, had never outright killed anyone. The Void had.

“A standard portal creates a path through the Twisting Nether,” Umbric said, “but what the ren’dorei do is find one that is already there.” He stretched out his hand and concentrated ﹣ and _yes,_ even here, in the heart of the castle, were tiny depressions in the fabric of reality. Most mages ignored them, unable to see or feel them in the first place, but for the ren’dorei they were as natural and obvious as the sun or the grass at their feet.

“Reality is checkered with tiny tears,” he explained. “It’s simply a matter of finding one…” His fingers caught, ever so slightly, in the edge of a particularly inviting tear. “...and pulling.” 

What would happen, if he tore reality in the king’s study? What would be waiting on the other side?

“I believe I’ve described it in the past as akin to walking through a door.”

The tear at his fingertips pulsed, _breathed_ like a living thing. Umbric knew that in the moments he spent in the darkness he was not alone. He knew eldritch fiends lurked just out of sight, waiting for the whispers to snag him, to scream so loud he stopped, and when he was trapped they would pounce. Did they know what awaited them here? Could they feel the Light? If he unleashed them into this world, would they attack the little king?

_Rip it, and find out._

“This… this in between…” He faltered for a second, overcome with what ifs. Took a deep breath. “The darkness between doors is full of terrors. Spending extended time there is ill advised.” 

And all the while, the Void whispered to them. The more holes torn in reality the stronger the whispers became. The harder they were to close.

That was the rule. Whatever was opened _must_ be closed. Tears in the fabric of reality were not like standard portals, could not remain open for extended periods of time. They were not a safe, covered path through the Twisting Nether but an invitation to leave it. They were a beacon for the monsters that went bump in the night. A gateway to unleash hell upon this world.

_Show him. Rip the fabric. Show him the power the Alliance tempts._

His fingers twitched, the snag pulling tight against his skin. 

_One motion. Tear it wide open._

The king’s eyes were fixed on that point in space, the tiny indent in which Umbric’s fingers pressed.

 _He would be dead before he could raise the alarm. The Light_ ﹣ _the sheer amount shining within him begs to be gutted out._

Umbric was frozen. The Void roared in his ears, his aura a visible, tangible thing ﹣ a wave of blue-black energy rapidly closing the distance between him and the boy king. The teacup clattered to the floor, lukewarm liquid splashing at their feet as Umbric _pulled_ ﹣ as he reached out with both hands and tore a hole so immense it could not ever hope to close again. Aberrations poured forth, their sickly yellow eyes fixating on the priest, and they lunged hungrily. The weakest of them were obliterated immediately in the face of Anduin’s holy fire, but they were not useless. Their smoldering ichor clung to him, blistering his lily white skin, each one a blow that drained him little by little until he collapsed beneath their dark weight.

The floor shook with the thundering steps of Faceless Ones. They passed through the tear easily, undeterred by the Light throbbing from the little king like blood in the vein. Angry, and hateful. Creatures like Anduin Wrynn, those select few favored by the naaru, were the reason the Void slept in the darkness. The destruction of one would be a great victory for the Void Lords. 

_Thunk!_ went another log in the fire, and Umbric jumped. Blinked, and when he opened his eyes again the office was quiet. Bathed in the soft orange glow of flame, the king sat before him undisturbed, mug cupped cozily in both hands for warmth. Behind him Valeera straightened, brushing wood dust from her fingers. Watched the fire for a moment before turning away, clearly listening but uninvolved.

Umbric dropped his hand.

“I see.” The little king’s eyes were thoughtful beneath the fog. And then, almost as if to himself, “That _is_ something we will have to discuss…”

“Before we joined the Alliance,” Umbric found himself saying, “insanity was our leading cause of death. It creeps in when we are overtired, or spend too much time in the in between.”

Perhaps that was too much information, for someone like the High King. He would see a liability ﹣ a ticking time bomb, the way the old worgen did. And maybe the ren’dorei _were_ a bomb. Maybe the time would one day come when the Void in all its infinite wisdom and strength was _too_ powerful to contain, no matter the training or control, no matter how well rested they were or how they took care of themselves. Maybe the ren’dorei were not just a finite race but a doomed one as well, like the aqir of Ahn’Qiraj ﹣ slaves to the Void Lords, and disposable.

Umbric chewed the inside of his cheek. But Anduin Wrynn wasn’t looking at him in horror or fear. No, the look on the king’s face now… Was that _pity?_

_He thinks you weak. He thinks you a captive, that the Void is your prison._

The magister bit down so hard he tasted blood. The Void was their _salvation._

_Show him. Show him the power you command. Show him you are not weak._

Umbric took a deep breath through his nose. The man he had been would seize the chance, would call forth the shadows in the room ﹣ and firelight created _so many_ shadows ﹣ and set them against the king’s Light. Would have dug his fingers into the snag of reality’s fabric and ripped into the cosmos itself, bellowing for any and all creatures of darkness to feast on the blessed boy before him.

But he was not that man anymore. He couldn’t afford to be.

“I will say something,” Anduin promised. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The High King spoke for several more minutes but in truth, Umbric only half heard him. He could only imagine what the likes of Genn Greymane would say about what he’d disclosed here today. The look on the spymaster’s face, the subtle distasteful curl of his upper lip beneath his neatly trimmed mustache. 

“Is that agreeable to you, magister?”

With difficulty Umbric pushed the whispers aside. The king was looking at him in earnest, eyes devoid of suspicion. Was this some sort of ploy? An attempt to lure him into a false sense of security, only to bring his every hope crashing down when it came time to raid Azshara’s infernal palace? And what after that?

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

A smile broke out over Anduin’s round, friendly face and he thrust out his hand, large with thick fingers that bore no calluses, no chipped nails. Scars crisscrossed the skin, near invisible in places and wretchedly thick in others, pink and shiny as though newly healed. Relics from the accident that nearly claimed his life. They extended past his sleeve, presumably down his soft arm and the length of his entire body. How had such damage been survivable?

_Without the Light he would have died. Without the Light he is nothing at all._

As if in agreement, Light winked over his broad hand in the briefest spurts before dying down, sinking gently beneath the flesh to sooth the once broken bones beneath. Umbric wondered if anyone else could see it as he did. 

When he’d signed the treaty to bring the ren’dorei into the Alliance there had been a handshake. He’d watched as the king first clapsed Alleria’s and then Umbric’s own, warmth pulsing through the fabric of his gloves and so hot it almost hurt. The king was not wearing gloves today. Neither of them were.

If he did not touch the High King’s hand, there was no deal.

Electricity crackled over the membrane of his skin as the Void recoiled and then coalesced, a swirling vortex round their clasped hands. Blinding white Light pushed against the blue-black of the Void, searching for weakness, skating over his sizzling flesh. Umbric took what little comfort he could in the knowledge that he was not alone in his discomfort, that his touch burned the king as much as the king’s burned him.

The contact was brief, a formality and nothing more, and Umbric could not help the small surge of victory he felt that it was the king who broke it first.

* * *

It bothered him that Valeera had not exited the room with him. Had stayed with the little king. Umbric knew rationally that it was expected of her ﹣ she _was_ , at the end of the day, Anduin’s bodyguard and personal advisor. 

What did they talk about?

The Valeera he had known in Zandalar was warm and inviting, curious about his work and _him,_ but the Valeera he saw in Stormwind… He supposed it balanced out, in the end ﹣ they spent maybe the same amount of time together, but here in the city Valeera was distant with him. She’d never been exactly forthcoming about herself and her life but what she did share with him now was less a snack to tide over a rumbling stomach than a teasing crumb during a famine.

 _“I… I lost someone very dear to me. To the Burning Legion.”_ And her choice of words ﹣ _someone very dear to me_ over perhaps the more explicit _someone I loved_ was telling. The phrase was a tender one in Thalassian, one for lovers and the great epic friendships of the classics. As she spoke, as her voice caught in her throat and her eyes watered, she walled herself off, sealed away in a fortress of grief Umbric had never known existed. In the city where she had lived with her old lover she was more reserved, took more care with her words and tone. 

_“I haven’t let someone into my life in a long time,”_ she had said. Was that supposed to placate him? To make him feel better when she sat there and lied to him that she was okay? As she stole into his flat in the dead of night and woke him shedding tears for another?

The anniversary of the Burning Legion had been difficult for many people, Valeera included, and while Umbric was by no means an expert on relationships he thought he was well acquainted with grief. Valeera had locked him out of this clearly important, painful part of her life, had denied until she no longer could that it even existed.

Did she discuss her late beloved with the boy king?

_Of course. He was the little lion’s father._

On the anniversary, Valeera had sat cloaked in sorrow on a bench overlooking the cemetery ﹣ overlooking the grave of the dead King Wrynn. _“I won’t be by tonight,”_ she’d told him. _“I think I’m going to see Anduin.”_ Was her visit not to comfort the child, as Umbric had originally thought, but to grieve with him over the man they’d both lost?

Why would she not unburden herself on Umbric? Did she not feel safe with him? Did she not know he cared? That he saw the misty look in her eyes as they passed certain city landmarks, that he pulled her to him in the middle of the night not out of passion but concern? Did she think, if she told him, that he would brush her off?

It was possible. Elves were not known for their empathy. Prince Kael’thas had proven as much. 

Perhaps she’d lived too long with humans, if she thought he wouldn’t understand the pain of loss.

_She doesn’t trust you. And how well do you even know Valeera Sanguinar?_

Umbric frowned. When it came right down to it, all he knew about her was that she’d been born in the Court of the Sun.

And really, he could infer any number of things from that. She’d told him she’d been cooking her own meals from the tender age of nine, but that didn’t necessarily _mean_ anything. Hadn’t Umbric himself sat in the kitchens as a boy and watched his cook at work? Even tried to help on multiple occasions, to unintended and disastrous consequences?

Before the Scourge, Valeera Sanguinar could have been the daughter of any lesser royal or high-ranking member of government or even some grandly titled aristocrat’s bastard. He wasn’t even sure she _was_ related to Lord Sanguinar, and the House was considered in Silvermoon to be extinct nonetheless. How could it be extinct if Valeera still lived? 

He didn’t know what she’d lost to the Scourge, or how she came to settle in Stormwind.

 _“I was granted amnesty by the previous king,”_ but what did that _mean?_ What had she done for King Varian to warrant such an act of benevolence? Had she come to Stormwind before the treaty between the two great cities had dissolved or after? And why was she still in the employ of his son Anduin?

Did it have anything to do with the orcish knife she kept snug in the hidden compartment of her boot? Why would she have such a thing? Where did she get it, and why was it important enough for the impression on its pommel to serve as her personal seal to someone like Shaw?

And really, what exactly was her relationship with the spymaster? He was perhaps the only person in whose company Umbric had ever seen her. Were they merely colleagues, in service to the Alliance and the King of Stormwind, or were they actually friends? Valeera had carried out several missions at the behest of the spymaster, but had made it quite clear on more than one occasion that she was not his subordinate. Once even in Umbric’s presence, to Shaw’s own face. 

_“The way I see it,”_ she’d told him, _“the only person you’re really accountable to is the king.”_ What did that mean? Was the king _her_ only superior?

_She calls him by his first name. They are quite close, and her orders come directly from him._

Why had Valeera gotten involved with Umbric at all? Why, when the king’s bed was readily available, would she give herself to a lowly magister?

_She is a spy._

Valeera wouldn’t spy on him.

_Hasn’t she been?_

And he knew Valeera went through his things. It wasn’t something Umbric enjoyed but… he’d always written it off as curiosity. Those who could not work magic were always interested in the ones who could. And didn’t he do the same thing to her anyway?

Hadn’t he researched wards for the sole purpose of hiding things from her?

_She was sent to monitor you. Every time she sets foot in your flat, she reports what she finds back to Shaw and the little lion. The Alliance doesn’t trust you, and neither does she._

She wouldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable beside him in sleep, if she didn’t trust him.

_She never falls asleep before you._

The memory of her, hovering by his sickbed in Boralus, came to him then. The concern and fear in her eyes as he choked on the viscous fluid in his lungs, the relief as she spoke to him. The tentative cupping of his hand over his many blankets. Valeera _cared_ about him. Those emotions weren’t something that could be faked.

_She’s a skilled actor, nothing more. That is her job._

Umbric scowled. He may have been young but he wasn’t stupid. Valeera cared about him ﹣ she probably even loved him. She was not spying on him. He was willing to entertain the thought that maybe she once had, but that had stopped long before they’d come to Stormwind. Probably even before the Battle of Dazar’alor.

He shook his head. Valeera was the one person he could trust in this city, and it would do him no good to start doubting her.

_You keep things from her._

Well. He harbored no delusions that should she ever learn of his traitorous fantasies she would alert the likes of Shaw. Treason was not something lightly shared or undertaken. 

_She would stand against you. When you go up against the little lion, she will stand with him._

Umbric groaned. “Shut up, shut up.”

_She has been by his side far longer than yours. What makes you think she would ever choose you?_

He knew she wouldn’t. It didn’t hurt any less as he jammed his clenched fists in his pockets and splashed through the rainy streets.

* * *

Stormwind was a strange city, and humans were strange people. He’d seen glimpses of that when he’d been stationed in Zandalar, and more in Kul Tiras. Kul Tirans, Umbric decided, were a _weird_ bunch. Last holiday season he’d been summoned to Boralus and bore witness to them setting up stalls and tables and carts right there in the frozen harbor ﹣ right there _on the ice_ ﹣ and skating from vendor to vendor without a care in the world. A frost fair, it was called. A surefire path to a miserable death, he thought.

Nothing froze in Stormwind, and perhaps it would be too impractical to host a frost fair anyway, what with the harbor being on the edge of the city rather than its central feature. But that didn’t mean the humans of Stormwind weren’t odd in other ways. 

“There are twelve days of Winter Veil,” Nicanor mused, sidestepping a group of humans bogged down with packages. “Why is everyone so excited _now?_ Nothing good happens until the last day.”

Umbric shrugged, watching as the humans ﹣ all decked in heavy, rain-splattered coats and cloaks ﹣ dashed into another shop. From a tailor emerged a grandmother with a soft sweater wrapped in brown paper tucked under her arm. She stopped under the awning to open her umbrella before stepping out into the crowd. All around them, people were shouting, extolling the virtues of their wares, advertising sales, and ﹣ strangest of all ﹣ bellowing opinions about whether His Majesty King Anduin would approve of this or that. The parchments and stationery shops seemed busiest of all, and Umbric saw many people, several of whom he even recognized as shop owners themselves, exiting the stores with exorbitant stacks of calligraphed cream and gold cardstock. “Perhaps humans give gifts all twelve days,” he replied.

The differences between the humans of Stormwind and the elves of Silvermoon were many, Umbric had learned. An important holiday in Quel’Thalas might be barely a blip, or nothing at all, in Stormwind, and the reasons seemed to vary as well. Hallow’s End, for example, a singular somber day to visit and tidy the graves of loved ones at the end of the Harvest Festival, was broken in Stormwind into three parts consisting of seven days' lighthearted play with costumed children and their Day of Remembrance, with their Harvest Festival ﹣ called Pilgrim’s Bounty ﹣ taking place a month later before the rains began. 

Winter Veil seemed to be yet another cultural difference. Over the course of eleven days, elves hosted grand dinners and decadent parties for their families and friends, business partners, employees, and colleagues, culminating finally on the twelfth day with the exchange of gifts and a public speech by the royal family ﹣ Regent Lord Theron now ﹣ summarizing all their achievements during the year. A great banquet took place in the Sunspire, to which Umbric had never been highly ranked enough to be invited ﹣ one last glorious show of ostentacity before the dead days at the end of the year.

But humans…

Gifts had started arriving at the Keep, and there seemed to be a small group of attendants specifically to receive them. Large evergreens were imported from Dun Morogh and splashed with tinsel and twinkling lights all over the city and even inside houses ﹣ Umbric had witnessed the other day a man and his son hauling a pokey pine tree into the home of a grateful older couple. 

Greatfather Winter was a real person here, not just fabled spirit but a fat dwarf dressed in a puffy white and scarlet suit, and he sat in the place of honor beneath the largest conifer Umbric had ever seen, smack in the middle of the Trade District. Children and adults alike stood in varying stages of impatience for the chance to sit on Greatfather Winter’s lap and whisper to him what they wanted for Winter Veil.

Umbric could only imagine the scandal, if anyone were to suggest in Silvermoon an elf march up to Greatfather Winter and demand presents.

And _oh,_ the _presents._ With the sheer numbers of people he and Nicanor had to wade through, Umbric thought perhaps the shopping frenzy of Winter Veil carried Stormwind’s economy all year long.

How exhausting.

“We may have to come back another day,” he muttered. On a good day he wished to be able to walk through the Trade District without people staring and stepping away, but today made him realize that was preferable to the crush of the holiday. 

But Nicanor shook his head. “He won’t be busy,” he assured the magister. “His is not the sort of business that lends itself to the wholesome cheer of Winter Veil.”

Everything seemed to be the sort of business for Winter Veil. Even the Diel Thalas had seen an influx of customers, buying voidwine for fancy parties. Humans had made an _art_ of commerce, Umbric mused. They’d started shopping the day after their Pilgrim’s Bounty and hadn’t yet stopped.

It was all very overwhelming.

But this was perhaps Nicanor’s only chance at shopping before the last day of Winter Veil. Diel Thalas had been packed the past few weeks, and Shani had been very ill, the child in her belly wreaking havoc on her health and physical stamina, and between fretting over her and running himself ragged at the inn, Nicanor hadn’t been outside in days.

“Go,” Atynar urged, when Umbric had shown up that morning. “Doesn’t the magister have need of you? Sir. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” he’d agreed, partly because he did. Nicanor hadn’t read the Highborne spellbook Umbric sought but he’d mentioned in an offhand way that he might know where to find a copy. 

Atynar nodded like that settled it. “Go,” he’d said again. “And you can buy your wife her Winter Veil gift while you’re out.” 

“But﹣”

“Tysiel’s here.” Atynar gestured towards the bar, where the woman was currently taking an order for several bottles of her own homemade wines from a trio of dwarves. “Shaw’s given me the day off, and Elestrae’s in the back if it gets busy.” He’d pulled the apron over Nicanor’s head and tied it around himself. “Get out.”

Which was how Umbric found himself shoulder to shoulder with the man, determinedly forging ahead through the crowded streets, and slipping into a windy little alley only marginally more clear. The storefronts were decorated with lights ﹣ not the conjured faerie lights of Quel’Thalas but bulbs made of real, colored glass ﹣ though the displays were less elegant, the ornaments strung up to blend in, not to attract customers. 

Nicanor led him to a tiny shop smashed between two larger buildings, just wide enough for a door and not much else. Umbric thought it looked to be the entrance to some back alley club, the sort that required passwords for entrance and carried no certainty of walking out alive or sober. The innkeep knocked twice and then thrice more, a staccato that meant nothing to Umbric but evidently was something to the person inside, because the door swung open after a moment, without the knob ever turning.

Inside was a dim affair, slightly larger the farther in they went. Upon first glance the little store was tidy, crates stacked in one corner so perfectly they seemed almost painted into the wall, a long counter along one side with displays of curious instruments and jewels, and a rickety bookshelf housing a rainbow of tomes; but closer inspection proved it was all a ruse. There was no order to anything. Daggers with fine hilts sat next to poison rings beside pouches of what looked like human hair and a collection of tiny fangs. On the wall a replica ﹣ at least Umbric hoped it was a replica ﹣ of an Amani shrunken head fetish stared at them with eyes made of malachite. Umbric felt his blood pressure go up as he examined the bookshelf in more detail: Volumes on the Light nestled against tomes on Gilnean architecture and Tauren weaponry and Gurubashi hexes and books of fiction in all genres, written in all languages and with no discernable organizational system. He itched to reach out and sort them.

This was the reason he’d never become a rogue, he thought vaguely, trying to ignore the atrocity that was the heap of books as a previously unnoticed back door unlatched and revealed the owner. Places like this filled him with unease.

The owner was a tall man with skin stretched taut over a bony frame and boasting a shock of hair the literal color of flame. He wore dark spectacles despite being indoors, and didn’t walk towards them so much as swagger.

“Ward!” he exclaimed, grinning with far too many teeth. “I was wondering if I’d see you before the end of the year.”

“I’m surprised I caught you,” Nicanor commented, unfazed. Umbric had to remind himself that Nicanor was well used to dealing with unsavory types ﹣ this strange man was probably not the worst he’d seen. “I thought I’d be stuck talking to that imp of yours again.”

Ah, a warlock. Umbric didn’t mind warlocks, on principle. They were merely mages who’d forsaken the arcane for the fel, utilizing the unstable energy in the way extremely powerful sorcerers had once used pure mana. Their contracts with demons didn’t bother him, being not very different from his own with the Void Lords. Chained to the warlock as they were, there was little danger in an enslaved demon going off on their own and inciting the chaos they seemed to crave.

No, what irritated Umbric about warlocks was that, despite their distortion and manipulation of the fel, despite their closeness to some of the same demons whose ranks filled the Burning Legion, warlocks were _tolerated_ by society at large. Begrudgingly maybe, but they had their own guild halls ﹣ even in Silvermoon! ﹣ and ran their own businesses and were _accepted_ as part of the general population, in the way ren’dorei were not. The fel was arguably more dangerous than the Void, in Umbric’s expert opinion. The Void merely augmented, while the fel mutated and twisted whatever it touched. 

Prince Kael’thas would still be alive and sane, if he’d never given into the fel.

The warlock shrugged. “Had an inkling you’d be back. Let’s say the season has made me generous enough to wait.”

Nicanor scoffed, “I’m hardly an interesting customer.”

“Now, now. Some of the jobs you’ve sent my way have been terribly entertaining.” When he smiled, all the man’s features pulled tight enough to cut glass. “But I agree, today you’re a bit of a background character, aren’t you?” And then he turned to Umbric, bowed low with an unnecessary flourish that was more about amusing himself than conveying respect. “To what do I owe this delightful pleasure, Magister Umbric?”

That was a new one. Umbric wasn’t used to being recognized by shopkeepers, at least not those who weren’t ren’dorei. As if reading his thoughts, the warlock added, “We’ve met before, magister. Or rather, you met with an acquaintance of mine. You seem to have quite the array of attractive friends.”

He chose not to comment on that. “I’ve been told you have a business in the procurement of rare goods?”

The warlock gave a short sort of laugh. “I have a business doing whatever I want,” he corrected, “which sometimes results in the procurement of rare goods, yes.”

Umbric gestured towards the bookcase. “Does that include tomes on ancient magic?”

A wrinkle appeared over the spectacles. “My acquaintance deals in books,” he said flatly. When Nicanor gave a little huff, crossing his arms over his puffed out chest, the warlock amended, “Those are mine. I read in my spare time.”

A pointed look.

Umbric could _feel_ the eyeroll behind the spectacles. “What sort of book?”

And Umbric told him, everything he could remember. The scroll from the Forbidden Library and the silk it had been wrapped in. The feel of the paper and what sort of tree he thought it’d come from and the pale, skittery writing. He described what he could recall of the diagrams and the sort of spells it contained, and the very dated dialect of Darnassian in which it had been written. 

There was silence when he was done, and with the dark glass obscuring his eyes, Umbric could not gauge the warlock’s reaction. Finally, “That sounds like an awful lot of work.”

“I have the gold,” Nicanor cut in, eyes narrowing.

The warlock snorted. “As if that’s ever been the issue.” And then, “My acquaintance enjoys this sort of thing. He’d have a blast tracking down this ridiculous book. He might even let you buy it.”

Something about his friend’s posture made Umbric think the acquaintance was a thinly veiled attempt at shrugging off any sort of responsibility. He knew what he asked was not easy to carry out. The singular last copy might actually exist only in Silvermoon. “I think I like the imp better than you,” Nicanor muttered.

Shrug. “So ask him to do it.” 

Imps’ command of mortal languages was poor, though Umbric had come across one or two that spoke quite clearly. “I’ve got a cask of voidwine in my basement,” Nicanor said offhandedly. 

“Crystals in it?”

A pause. “Sure.”

And the warlock huffed. “I _suppose,”_ he drawled. And then to Umbric he asked, “Are you aware the Diel Thalas sells voidwine _without any Void in it?”_

Umbric blinked. “Yes?” He wasn’t aware that was a concern. The Void wasn’t… distillable like mana used to be and frankly, why would anyone want that?

The warlocks’ thin lips twitched. “And you allow that? That’s false advertising, that is.”

“Er…”

“What’s the time frame on something like this?” Nicanor cut in. The warlock scratched his head in thought.

“Dunno. Could be a few days. Could be a few weeks. I’ll probably be doing a lot of swimming, and it’s cold this time of year.”

“Two casks if you make it a priority.”

The spectacles tipped, and the two ren’dorei were suddenly on the receiving end of a very pointed, yellow, slit-pupiled stare. “Double the Void crystals.”

“Deal.”

A grin. “Deal.” And then, “Okay, get out. I have things to do, thanks to you.” And before Umbric could get in another word they were back on the rickety front porch, the door slamming shut behind them. His head spun.

“What just happened?” he asked.

Nicanor shrugged. “I agreed to look the other way while he drinks tainted voidwine.”

“... _why?”_

“Says he likes to visit friends.” Nicanor turned his collar up against the rain. “I don’t know, I don’t ask. Weird man, he is.”

Visit his… “Who the fuck was that?”

His friend stroked his neat little beard in thought. “Told me his name once. Anthony J… something? Starts with a ‘kuh’ sound. I don’t know how to spell it in Common, you know their alphabet’s wonky.”

Umbric sighed, a little in relief, a little in overwhelmed exhaustion. He much preferred the straightforwardness of mages to men like Anthony J something. “Deal with him often?” he asked mildly.

Nicanor shook his head. “Not usually. You know Shaw doesn’t put me on shit often enough to warrant poking around, and the shop’s not usually there ﹣ with him in it ﹣ anyway. Sometimes I see him gluing coins to the pavement but I’m pretty sure the spymaster’s told him to stop doing that. Probably a lot of coins this time of year…”

Umbric declined to comment ﹣ on any of it. Nicanor had warned him his contact was “probably insane”; Umbric wasn’t sure if he preferred that sort of insanity to the Void’s. Best to just forget the entire thing, except…

“Where are you getting the gold to pay him?”

“Hmm?” They’d reached the main street again, and Nicanor was peering into the windows of a jewelry store. “Oh. Don’t worry about it. Consider it a Winter Veil present.”

Umbric frowned. This sort of job ﹣ from that sort of man ﹣ was likely to be very expensive in the end; his friend didn’t make enough from the odd assignments set to him by Shaw, and the Diel Thalas needed its income to stay afloat and support the Wards’ growing family. At his look, Nicanor reached a hand out and patted him firmly on the shoulder.

“A pandaren came in the other day,” he explained. “Wen? The one who sells us our chicken.” The magister nodded; he knew the man. “He gave me a certificate for the holiday.” He stopped a moment and rummaged in his coin purse before withdrawing a slip of thick creamy parchment embossed with gold leaf. Held it out.

_A donation has been made by WEN FON in the name of His Majesty King Anduin Wrynn this Winter Veil to THE DIEL THALAS in the amount of EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT GOLD._

Umbric stared. The names and amount had been carefully written in a different hand than the fine calligraphy on the parchment, and beneath were three identical characters in Pandaren. “Wh-why would he do that?” he wondered, and Nicanor shrugged.

“Apparently it’s custom here. We got one last year too.”

Well. That explained the booming business at all the stationery stores. They were selling these certificates bearing the king’s name.

“Why ‘eight hundred and eighty-eight’?” he asked.

“I asked Wen the same question. Apparently the symbol they use for the number eight looks like the one for happiness.” Nicanor tapped the row of three characters. “So, three times happiness.” Grinned.

And Umbric understood then. The third happiness, the extra eight in the sum, represented Nicanor and Shani’s child. Wen was politely wishing good fortune on the Wards’ new family.

A lump formed in his throat, and with difficulty he swallowed around it. He’d never known the Wards were so close to Wen Fon. He'd thought the man was simply a vendor. Umbric knew the pandaren weren’t as hostile towards the ren’dorei as most, but this… this was more than simply _kind._

“Hey.” Nicanor had stopped outside the jewelry store. “Mind if I look in here?” His entire body was pointed in the direction of the door, wreathed in pine garland with the name _Denman Family Jewelers_ in blinking red and green lights, eye caught by something inside. 

It was warm in the little shop, heat seeping from the corner’s wood stove all the way to the door. Neat little displays were arranged around an aesthetic that catered to the gems they featured, and a full ruby parure sat facing one window, decadent enough for even the aristocracy.

“Good afternoon! Welcome to Denman’s Family Jewelers!” Suddenly Umbric’s view was obstructed by an irritatingly cheerful woman wearing a tasteful matching set of earrings, necklace, and bracelet. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“In the window you have these earrings…?”

Umbric let himself trail in the wake of the smiley saleswoman as she chatted with his friend. There was nothing in this shop that particularly interested him. He didn’t wear jewelry, and if he were going to give Valeera a Winter Veil present, he certainly wouldn’t buy it here. He’d never seen her wear any sort of jewelry at all; she didn’t seem the type.

Nicanor, on the other hand, was quite firm in his choice of gift, though he wasn’t quite sure yet how best to present it. He was in the market for pearls.

Long ago, pearls had been amongst the rarest jewels in Quel’Thalas. Viciously hoarded by the murlocs overrunning the coasts, the risks in acquiring them set a high price, and only royalty and the insanely wealthy wore them. The Scourge, of course, had changed all that. Like the elves, the murlocs were decimated by the undead, and confined now to only a handful of settlements along the shore. Pearls weren’t quite the status symbol they’d once been, but murlocs were still dangerous and the jewelry still fetched quite a bit of gold in Silvermoon. When the ren’dorei had come to Stormwind, they’d been shocked at the number of people from all walks of life wearing them. 

“We’ve still got some colored pearls from the last shipment,” the saleswoman was saying. Over her shoulder she called, “Hey Terrance, do you have any raw pearls left?”

“Yeah, hold on.” From behind the counter a man pulled a tray divided into neat, even sections, little baubles rattling against its walls. He came over to them and held it out, asking, “What were you looking for, sir?”

So absorbed in the exchange ﹣ the nostalgia that the gems brought him, and the awe that they were accessible and that _Nicanor,_ a simple innkeep, was purchasing them for his wife ﹣ was Umbric that he didn’t hear the little jingle of the opening door, the stomping of wet boots on the mat. He didn’t notice anything at all until he caught the gruff, nasally voice of Renzik the Shiv.

“There you fuckin’ are! I’ve been all over this city looking for you!”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter was so late! I was having a lot of trouble with it. It went through more cuts and rewrites than probably any other chapter, or any other fic. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated, and help Umbric quell the whispers in his head.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric asks Valeera an important question, and Winter Veil has come to Stormwind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shhhh, pretend this dropped in time for Christmas.
> 
> This chapter is rated M for sexual content.

“I’ve been all over this fucking city looking for you!”

Umbric froze. What now?

Had the boy king relayed their conversation to Shaw? Had he taken the pain inflicted by their clasped hands as an act of aggression and sent SI:7 after him? Could Umbric be arrested for something like that?

But Renzik wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t even looking at Nicanor, observing the scene with raised eyebrow. No, the goblin’s fat green finger was pointed accusingly at… the shopkeeper?

“Damnit, Terrance!” Renzik scowled. “I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour. I’ve got shit to do, you know!”

The human ﹣ Terrance ﹣ looked up from the tray of pearls, unimpressed. “We’ve been busy, Renzik. I can’t leave Isabel and Farrah by themselves.”

The goblin scowled, but the shopkeep had a point. Umbric and Nicanor were not the only people in the busy jewelry shop.

“I was going to take lunch when Theresa came back,” Terrance swore, which must have meant something to the goblin.

“I’m here now, and she’s not.”

The human rolled his eyes. “Lucky for you.” Heaved a long suffering sigh. “Just… sit over there. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

 _“A_ minute,” the goblin warned. “I’m not waiting around for Theresa to kick me out again.”

“Yeah, yeah.” And with a roll of his eyes, the human turned back to the ren’dorei and muttered, “Sorry. Family business. I’m sure you’ve got one like him.”

“I heard that!”

“You hear everything with those bat ears of yours.” 

Umbric was in shock. What the _fuck_ just happened? Family business?

He couldn’t concentrate on the chatter between the shopkeep, the saleswoman, and Nicanor. It didn’t quite matter ﹣ it wasn’t his commission. Instead he found his gaze trailing after a certain shaved green head as he puttered about the shop. Ducked behind the counter, started rifling through a tray of loose gems. He seemed unbothered by Umbric and Nicanor, not so much as glancing in their direction. 

But that was implausible. Why else would Renzik the Shiv have followed them into some random shop?

_He’s spying on you._

Of course he was. Suddenly the world narrowed, and Umbric forgot all about Nicanor and his expensive nostalgia, about the gentle misting rain outside. Only one thought held any purchase in his muddled brain: How much he loathed Renzik the Shiv, second in command of SI:7 and underling to Mathias Shaw.

“You about ready now?” muttered the goblin, and Terrance the shopkeep was now no longer beside Umbric and Nicanor but at Renzik’s side, peering curiously at the gems that had captured his attention.

“I’m not making that.” Terrance’s voice was disdainful. “Can’t you get her earrings or something?”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Renzik was probably born into a different cartel, not the Bilgewater that had pledged themselves to the Horde and most likely not the Steamwheedle who claimed neutrality but leaned red. But the fact of the matter was that Renzik was a goblin ﹣ a race of despicable little green beasts who changed allegiances at the drop of a hat and who would sell their own mothers for enough coin ﹣ and people like Mathias fucking Shaw trusted him over someone like Umbric. Trusted him enough to name him deputy, and to act as leader in the spymaster’s absence. How had someone like Renzik ﹣ how had a _goblin_ ﹣ risen so far?

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _fair._

“Magister Umbric? Sir?”

Umbric blinked a few times. The world came back into focus. His friend was patting his coin purse ﹣ double- or triple-checking he’d closed it, no doubt ﹣ and the saleswoman was busy now behind the counter, carefully noting the sale she’d just made. Renzik and the shopkeep had not looked up, were in fact deep in conversation about some sort of jewelry project the human seemed very much not to want to do ﹣ were not paying attention to them at all.

The goblin’s ears didn’t so much as flick in their direction as they left the shop.

* * *

On principle, the Cathedral District was not a place Umbric had ever held the desire to visit. Its church, sitting proudly and prominently dead center, took up most of the square, with homes for the clergy and various citizens crammed around it, and a specialty draenei tailor who made a cloth called _lightweave_ that left blisters on ren’dorei flesh. 

All in all, the district was not difficult to avoid, and the only business Umbric frequented ﹣ a shady little shop run by creatures wrapped in enchanted cloth who reminded him vaguely of Locus-Walker ﹣ sat on its very edge, just on the water. So when he stopped just past the bridge, head turned in the direction of the towering white marble spires, Nicanor noticed almost immediately.

“Everything alright, sir?” And then, following his gaze, “Shani’s always wanted to see the windows. They’re supposed to be these beautiful works of art done in stained glass, but all the Light around them…” He wrinkled his nose. “You ever been?”

“No.” But Umbric wasn’t looking at the cathedral, not exactly. Beneath the arch, just before the church, was a familiar figure cloaked in scarlet, hood up against the rain. 

What was Valeera doing in the Cathedral District? Was she visiting the church, a pious pilgrimage undertaken in the spirit of the holiday?

“Go on ahead,” he told his friend. “I’ve suddenly remembered an errand I have to run.”

Nicanor arched one delicate black eyebrow. “An errand,” he said doubtfully. “Funny choice of words to refer to Ms Sanguinar.”

The look Umbric gave him was sharp enough to cut. “I wasn’t aware you knew her.”

“Of her,” Nicanor corrected. “I know of her. I see her sometimes at SI:7.”

_Reporting to Shaw._

He brushed the small voice aside. “I see.” And then, “I wouldn’t dawdle. Diel Thalas is probably busy.”

A drop of rainwater crashed against Nicanor’s brow, cascading slowly down the side of his face before falling from his chin and disappearing into the wet pavement. In the span of a moment, he transformed from friend and eager Winter Veil consumer to innkeep on a mission and part time operative. “I wonder if Shani’s eaten yet,” he mused. “Shall I save you a plate?”

“I’ll get my own.”

And with a nod, Nicanor pivoted smartly on his heel and continued along their original path, around the canals to the Dwarven District. Setting his jaw, the magister went in a different direction, over the bridge towards the great cathedral.

Umbric did not fear the Light. Rationally, he understood that a _building_ posed him no threat, that he was safe within the walls of Stormwind and even within the house of worship itself. He _chose_ to avoid the distinct prickling sensation that came with the district, the feeling of his very skin itching like the scratchiest woolen sweater. Like many elves, he had once been very devout, but the Scourge had taken that from him too. And with the acceptance of the Void, the Light didn’t want him anymore.

Head held high, he ignored the feeling of eyes on him as he crossed the bridge, as he stepped under the archway and into the district. As the great cathedral loomed before him. Valeera was there, and he was safe with her.

“﹣have not seen it, no.”

“﹣the Mage Quarter, at the moonwell.”

As he drew closer, he noted that Valeera was not alone, and with irritation and a dash of panic, he saw she was speaking to a member of SI:7. Both of them turned at his approach, ears flicking almost in tandem in his direction. 

“Magister Umbric.” The SI:7 agent was kaldorei, with dusty lavender skin and long blue-violet hair slick from rain. Beneath bushy eyebrows peered luminous golden eyes, and his facial hair gave him a distinctly handsome, somewhat rugged look. His expression did not change at Umbric's approach, and he bowed in the odd way of the kaldorei ﹣ one fist pressed against an open palm, and bending at the waist ﹣ reminiscent of the elves who had descended from them. 

Umbric did not bow back. “Good afternoon,” he said tersely. The kaldorei spoke Thalassian in a hearty baritone, and it grated on his ears. 

“Have you seen the display at the Mage Quarter’s moonwell?” the agent asked conversationally. He seemed unperturbed by the rain, even though by the look of him he’d been out in it for hours. Perhaps it was something no longer noticed when one lived for tens of thousands of years. Or perhaps, close to nature as the kaldorei were, the kiss of rain upon one’s skin was welcomed, some sort of holy communion performed by Elune herself. 

“I have not.” A large community of kaldorei had moved into the Mage Quarter following the burning of Teldrassil, though Umbric rarely interacted with them. 

The kaldorei smiled warmly. “This is the first Stormwindian Winter Veil for many of us,” he explained. “We don’t traditionally celebrate all twelve days, and some of us have quite gotten into the spirit.” His Thalassian was very good ﹣ if Umbric closed his eyes, he would never know the man was kaldorei. No doubt due to the similarities between his own Darnassian, though the similarities had always been something Umbric struggled with. _Days_ was a false cognate between the two languages, the word _daor_ meaning some sort of ritual footwear in Darnassian, but the agent did not falter, did not stumble over the word as Umbric would have. 

Valeera, half obscured by her warm, overlarge hood, gave him a slight nod. “I shall have to pay it a visit before the twenty-fifth,” she promised. Nothing in her tone gave the slightest inclination that the two knew each other ﹣ Valeera spoke proper, haughty Thalassian that conveyed a holier than thou attitude towards the listener. In fact, it was not terribly dissimilar to the manner in which the Grand Magister himself spoke, Umbric realized. It was the way she held herself with him, not quite as rigid, not so guarded, that put him on edge; and the pleasant, sincere register the operative used did not help, regardless if his tone did not change as he spoke to Umbric too. He found himself reaching for Valeera, only conscious of the action once his fingers brushed the small of her back. 

“I suppose I should return to my post,” the kaldorei said cordially. He seemed not to have noticed Umbric’s claim. “If you have the time, magister, I highly encourage you to visit the moonwell. The display is quite beautiful.”

Umbric wasn’t visiting a fucking moonwell. “I will do my best.” 

And with another bow, square in the center of them both, the operative disappeared into the crowd. Umbric did not remove his hand.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he murmured, thumb stroking down the fabric of her tunic. “You don’t strike me as particularly religious.”

A wry smile twisted along Valeera’s lips. “I’ve been to church plenty of times,” she answered. 

“For Winter Veil?”

“Mm. I attend the twelfth night mass every year.”

_The little lion leads that mass. Isn’t that what the common people said?_

“Am I interrupting your worship then?” he teased. 

“Not at all.” A little wrinkle appeared over her nose. “I don’t go because I particularly enjoy it.”

_She goes for him._

“Today was about the children’s home.” And she gestured somewhere to the left, arm nearly brushing Umbric’s chest, to some building he couldn’t see. “I had to make my donation before the fourth day of Winter Veil.”

Donation. The creamy slip of parchment bearing a donation of eight hundred and eighty-eight gold flashed in Umbric’s mind. “What’s so special about the fourth day?” he questioned. “I’ve passed more people than I can count speaking on its importance.” 

Maybe that was a stupid question, and if he were speaking Common, he was sure he would get more than one incredulous look from the milling crowds. But Valeera didn’t treat it as a stupid question, and when her eyebrows rose, Umbric got the sense she was more astounded that no one had told him, rather than surprised he hadn’t learned.

“Anduin was born on the fourth day of Winter Veil,” she explained, “and every year, the people donate whatever they can spare to charity.”

A lump of exasperation grew in his chest. Oh. Of _course_ it would be something like that. Of course the blessed boy king would be so selfless.

The birth of a prince was a national holiday in Quel’Thalas. Al’ar the phoenix god himself had manifested over the city the day Prince Kael’thas entered the world, singing his holy song for the glory of he who was fated to be the greatest of elven kings since Dath’Remar himself. His fiery orange feathers he left ﹣ one each for King Anasterian, Queen Athissa, and the babe in his cradle ﹣ affirmation and approval for the great Sunstrider dynasty. 

Umbric supposed he’d expected similar fanfare to the king chosen by the naaru, but the Light, it seemed, did not believe in such gaudy displays of power. Was there no limit to the little lion’s altruism?

Wen Fon’s certificate, with its three identical Pandaren characters, seemed less well intentioned now. A king’s order at the height of the season. A forced kindness, which wasn’t truly kind at all.

They passed beneath the arch together, a temporary refuge from the dreary weather. Valeera was warm beneath his palm, and she walked so closely that there was no real space between them at all. “I support the children’s home every year,” she continued, frowning. “I think most people give to the church.” 

This was the part where she asked him who he’d chosen to receive gold in the king’s name, and Umbric braced for it. He supposed it was expected of him, as leader of the ren’dorei. Let Alleria take care of it, he decided. She could choose for him, and spend her own gold. 

But Valeera didn’t ask, and after several moments, as they crossed the bridge back into the Trade District and strolled along the slick cobblestoned streets, a wholly different thought took root in his mind, until he could not hold it in any longer. 

“And your… the kaldorei?” he asked casually. “What does he do?”

“Nightwind? I’m not sure. I believe this year he gave to the children as well.”

Nightwind. Umbric knew that name. Nightwind was a very high-ranking agent of SI:7, not far behind the goblin. A _very_ high-ranking agent. 

_The Shiv and Nightwind, conveniently appearing where you are, and soon after your meeting with the boy king._

He didn’t know how to feel about this. 

_Valeera works for SI:7. Are you surprised?_

He couldn’t even argue. There was nothing he could say in her defense that did not make his stomach churn.

_The kaldorei was too friendly with her. They know each other, intimately._

He wasn’t doing this right now.

_She feeds SI:7 intel through him._

He shook his head.

“Umbric?”

_Sex is a very effective interrogation technique. Look what she’s learned from you._

“Umbric.”

_What would you learn, if you used her in the same way?_

He was conscious of the chill, the damp seeping into his clothes, the minute shivering. A firm pressure on his chest, a slender red-gloved hand. Umbric tried to focus on it, tried to ignore the darkness bleeding into the corners of his vision.

_Valeera is in bed with SI:7. You’ve always known this._

Golden locks, beaded with thousands of tiny, perfect water droplets, spilling from beneath her hood. The long, creamy column of her neck, and the full pink lips. 

“Hey.”

Umbric supposed it made sense, that Valeera would interact with other SI:7 agents. She would have to know them, with how friendly she was with the esteemed Master Shaw. 

_How else would a sin’dorei live safely within the Alliance’s capital city? Whose bed does she sleep in, when she’s not in yours?_

He grit his teeth. Those full lips were moving, forming soundless words to questions he couldn’t answer. 

The images smashed into him. Valeera, in the arms of little Anduin Wrynn, sliding the soft knitted sweater off his scarred shoulder. 

Wrapped in the painted embrace of King Varian, his broad fists knotted in her hair and his lips at her throat.

Beneath the kaldorei Nightwind, the old worgen, Turalyon and Halford Wyrmbane, and at the mercy of Sh﹣

“Umbric.”

His head jerked, desperately seeking the dissolution of the visions, the comfort of clear emerald eyes…

Only to find twin voids of black, _empty and unseeing. Her lips parted, revealing an innocuous mouth full of sharp fangs, and talons raked across his face as he shoved her violently away._

**_With Valeera under your control they will all follow. The High King and his dogs and SI:7 will all fall under your command._ **

_It was Valeera’s mouth that moved but that was not her voice. Umbric had heard it before_ ﹣ _had heard it every day since he’d first touched the Void. Her flesh rippled with dark energy, gleamed in her hair, and the red-gloved hands wrapped around his biceps were iron._

 _“Umbric,” she said, “show me the Void. Let me see what you see. It’s_ not real. It’s not real. Look at me.” 

Peeking through his lashes he saw smooth, pink skin and soft lips, behind which sat very straight, even teeth of normal length. Tentatively his eyes flicked up to hers ﹣ wide green orbs surrounded by clean, unkohled lashes. Not black. Not the Void. 

Her grip was hard but by no means unbreakable, not like in his vision. If he wanted, he could push her away again and she would go. The fiend in his vision would cling, suctioned to him and unmoving. 

“Breathe,” she urged. “It’s alright. Everything is alright. It’s just me.” 

Just Valeera. The real Valeera, and not some eldritch abomination wearing her face. Umbric took several deep breaths through his nose. 

He wondered dully, as the gentle mist became a gradual downpour, if Lightforged experienced similar visions from the Light. Did the Light whisper in their ears prophecies and sweet truths? Did the Light show them good and gentle things, wonders that made their hearts sing? Did the Light talk to King Anduin?

Why, when his blood sang with the Void, were the visions so disturbing? The Void was above such petty feuds as good versus evil, seeing every truth and all the lies. Why were the truths it showed him so horrifying?

“Are you alright?” Valeera did not let go, perhaps concerned that if she did he would erupt in Void tendrils, his only anchor to reality broken. _Is it gone?_

His eyes raked over her, searching for something, any wrongness to tell him he was still in the vision. He found none. Her hood had fallen back when he’d shoved her, water rushing in little rivers down the side of her face and dampening the crown of her head. He didn’t know if that made it better or worse. 

But she was _warm_ and her skin, when he brought his hand to her arm, was _soft,_ and those were things the Void never was. 

“I’m fine,” he whispered. “Just tired.”

Fine blonde brows knitted together. “Did you sleep last night?”

If one could call laying in a featherbed unconscious for a handful of hours actually sleeping. 

“Not well,” he admitted. She frowned harder. 

“You should go home.” Thunder rumbled gently in the distance. 

“Come with me.” Around them came the sounds of splashing, of people exiting shops and squealing at the deluge, of umbrellas hastily opened and grumbling over the foul weather. Umbric stared hard at Valeera, willing her to understand. _Stay with me. Choose me._

Valeera stared back, and rubbed his arms reassuringly. “Let’s go then, before we catch our deaths.”

* * *

She’d come home with him and stripped him of his wet clothes. He ran a hot bath, and when he asked her to join him she did. It wasn’t a sexual act, and neither treated it as such. She washed her hair with his perfumed soap and he watched her, watched the shimmer of the silvery scar on her shoulder blade and the muscles move beneath the skin. Laid back until he was nearly submerged, bathwater lapping at his ears, and pulled her down to his chest, every inch of him pressed against every inch of her. In the warm tiled sanctuary of his bathroom he couldn't feel the unsettling pull of the Void. It didn’t exist at all. 

They sat, he in his dressing gown and her in a stolen shirt, in his parlor, a fire crackling cheerfully in the hearth and their clothes hung to dry before it. He could have done that himself ﹣ fire had once been his speciality ﹣ but there was something almost painfully sweet about Valeera pulling one of his soft sleeping shirts over her head, as though the thought of leaving hadn’t yet occurred to her. As she held out his dressing gown with a smirk and an amused eyeroll, as she pulled all her hair over one shoulder and combed it through with her fingers. 

“Do you have cards?” she asked suddenly. 

He blinked owlishly at her. “Cards?”

“Playing cards.”

Oh. How terribly lower class. Where had she learned to play cards? “I don’t.”

She laughed. “Do you have any games at all? This sort of weather has always leant itself to them, I think.”

The corners of his lips twitched up at the thought of her spending the whole of the rainy season inside playing games. “I may have a fethesi board.”

“Fethesi?” Her eyes twinkled. “I haven’t played fethesi in… I don’t remember.”

Fethesi was a simple enough game, in Umbric’s opinion. Each player began with a set of twenty-four pieces with the aim to capture the four corners of the board and the center square. There existed terribly ornate and elegant boards, with immovable carved figures in each corner and center, but Umbric’s board was simple and made from wood. Valeera took red and Umbric gold and for several moments there was only the quiet scuffle of pieces as they lined the edges of the board. “Do you remember how to play?” he teased.

“I don’t pretend to be some great master,” Valeera quipped, “but I believe I can capture the well before you.”

Capture the well. So Valeera had learned the old way, the Ancients style. Legend had it that fethesi told the story of the War of the Ancients, and others maintained it to be a tale from the Troll Wars, each corner a famous Amani chieftain to be killed and the center representing the great Zul’jin himself. Umbric had always liked the War of the Ancients version best, if he had to ascribe a narrative to a strategy game. He had found, during his life in Silvermoon, that unless one’s family was particularly militaristic or possessed a deep hatred for trolls, that many of his fellows played Ancients style. 

It was fun, playing with Valeera. She was quiet, and had a charming habit of dramatically leaving one finger on her placed piece as she gave the board a last once over, her touch keeping the piece in play until she was sure of her decision. It was something that children did, that little flourish as she removed her finger, and Umbric's heart swelled with affection as he observed her.

Had Valeera played fethesi as a child too? Had she also sat with her father, brow wrinkled in thought, and listened to the stories told by the board? Had her games also lasted days, only coming to conclusion after many nights?

“My oldest brother taught me to play,” she offered without preamble. “He used to look like that too, when I took too long.”

What face was he making, for her to quip that? “Oh really?” 

Never breaking from her red piece, Valeera carefully put it back where it had started, and selected a different one, moving it two spaces in the opposite direction. “He told me I was too preoccupied with trying to destroy his army.” She shrugged. “But if his pieces were out of play, then mine could win.”

It took sixteen pieces to capture the four corners, and three had to be held before a move to the center square could be initiated. 

“Did you lose often?” Umbric mused.

“I suppose anyone would, with a brother twice again one’s age. He had no mercy.” She said it fondly, with just a tinge of childhood annoyance.

Valeera had a brother. She had more than one, because the one who’d taught her fethesi was her _oldest brother._ Umbric didn’t need to wonder what had happened to them. Like his parents, they had probably been lost to the horrors of the Scourge. 

“And you?”

It took him a moment to understand that she was asking him a question, absorbed in the game as he was. Frowning, he slid a gold piece forward, creating a blockade four deep and capturing the east corner for himself. “My father,” he admitted, ignoring the twinge in his chest. “I have many memories of him bent over this game. Frowning, usually.” 

“You’re frowning," Valeera pointed out, grinning.

“I find fethesi lends itself to frowning.” 

Several moments passed. Valeera led her army to the northern corner, placed two red pieces together in a line, and then murmured, “My father never played with us. He was always too busy.” And then, “Honestly, I rarely saw him. My mother preferred the country, and he was too involved with the Convocation to join us.”

 _Her father_ **_was_ ** _Lord Sanguinar._

But Lord Sanguinar’s family had been killed by bandits, the story went. He had no living children. 

“That’s a shame,” he said softly. Umbric’s father had been in high demand, a powerful enchanter with a keen mind, but he’d always made time for his son. 

Valeera shrugged. “I hardly remember him,” she said airily, and Umbric didn’t know how to interpret the impassivity on her face. 

  
  
  


“You’re cheating.”

Umbric chuckled, low and dark in the back of his throat. “I don’t cheat.”

Valeera scoffed, even as she tilted her head and allowed him access to her bare neck. “Then why…” Her breath hitched as he pressed his lips to the junction of neck and shoulder. “...when you’re losing, are you﹣”

“Who said I was losing?”

Red pieces cornered the board. A few well placed gold ones would break her hold on the north and west, and from there it was only a matter of time before Umbric would conquer the third corner and advance on the center square; but truth be told, he had lost interest some time ago. Valeera had said nothing when he’d settled himself beside her, nor even when his fingers danced along the soft, exposed skin of her thigh. Her eyes narrowed as he nudged his way up beneath the hem, and Umbric did not miss the flush that had started to bloom over her face and neck.

“You have no corners,” she protested weakly.

He lifted his head, gestured vaguely in the direction of the board. “I’ve lost less pieces than you.” Pushing back against the carpet with one hand, he moved a gold token, capturing two of hers and annihilating the barricade that bound the west to her. “The next turn,” he said lazily, “I’ll do the same to the north, and you’ll have to scramble to reclaim one as I chip away at my third.” He turned his attention back to her. “You’ll be too distracted to see me play the line and capture the well.” Leaned forward, and brushed his lips against her forehead. “And if I’m very truthful, I’m too distracted to continue like this.”

The flush deepened. “Then I win,” Valeera declared after a moment. 

Umbric laughed, breath warm against her face. “How do you figure?”

“No matter what you do, you’re mine.” She grinned deviously, tracing the collar of his dressing gown with one slim finger. Pushing the fabric aside to caress his bare skin, just above his furiously beating heart.

_No._

Yes… He was hers. How right that sounded, coming from her lips, captured so sweetly beneath his own. Heat simmered in his chest and deep in his belly, mingling with the warmth from the fire and her body. How long had that been true? How long had this woman taken up residence in his heart, space in his head? When had he started seeking her out, needing her ﹣ _craving_ her presence? The world tilted on its axis, replacing the night sky of Silvermoon with the star that was Valeera so gradually that it wasn’t until this moment he’d looked up and realized that she was all there was, as far as the eye could see. 

She pulled him down with her, hands running over his smooth chest, little pink lines from her delicate nails scoring his skin. The dressing gown had fallen open at some point ﹣ he hadn’t even noticed, nipping down her neck and teasing quiet little half moans from somewhere deep inside her. Her pilfered shirt found itself discarded some ways away, unwanted and quickly forgotten. He couldn’t stand the feeling of bare skin on fabric any longer. 

A luxurious sweep of her damp hair over one naked shoulder, a cascade of molten sunlight, quieted the clamor in his head, the warring scents of his own shampoo mingling with the pleasant, clean fragrance that was _Valeera_ keeping him grounded with her. It was almost painfully arousing, his smell on her, and he was seized with a powerful urge to overpower her, to dominate and possess her ﹣ not with the Void but in a simpler, carnal manner. He wanted to smother her in himself until her own natural perfume ceased to exist, to be inside her so thoroughly that there could never be any doubt as to whom she belonged. She would smell like him, bear marks from his hands, lips swollen from his kisses; one look would scream to the world, the Light and the Void and the Sunwell itself, _I belong to Umbric._ He ground their hips together, and she keened beneath him. 

She reached for him, nails digging into the soft flesh of his bicep as she threw one long, shapely leg around him. With one hand he did the same, and when he touched the pads of his fingers to her center, from her lips slipped a strangled moan that shot straight to his groin. 

He was so achingly hard he thought he might die before he could bury himself in the paradise between her legs. What a fucking fantastic way to go.

_Isn’t this familiar?_

The whispers were faint, nearly drowned out by Valeera’s needy whine as he dragged his hardness tantalizingly close to her entrance.

_You never made it to bed last time either._

Umbric pressed hot, wet kisses to the swell of her breasts, sucking a sensitive, pert nipple into his mouth, and the resulting gasp almost overpowered the Void. Almost.

_Did she even want you in her bed?_

He wasn’t doing this. Not right now. He growled, sliding a hand beneath her plush bottom and yanking her into his lap.

 _It’s never_ **_her_ ** _bed, is it? Always you end up together in_ **_your_ ** _bed._

His eyes closed with a hiss as Valeera’s hand curled around his cock and he honed in on it, on the feel of her around him.

“Take this off,” she demanded breathily, yanking on the dressing gown. Umbric didn’t often take orders in bed but on this matter he agreed with her, and cast the fabric aside. 

_She doesn’t let you in her bed. She doesn’t let you in her life._

He bent over her and crashed their mouths together, a desperate noise escaping ﹣ he knew not who made it ﹣ as she dragged his length through her slick folds, terribly, teasingly close to where he needed to be. He wanted to break her, but she seemed determined to break him first.

“Valeera.” He seized her hand, the one not working his cock into sweet oblivion, and slammed it over her head, sinking into the thick carpet. Sucked a dark red mark into the juncture of her neck, panting against the sweat-slicked skin. 

“Bite me,” she pleaded, and he did, hard. Sunk his teeth into her sweet flesh hard enough to bruise, a glowing scarlet bullseye for all to see. She could ask anything of him right now, and he would do it without hesitation.

Electricity crackled down his spine and in a flash he snatched her remaining hand, smacked it down to join the other, his grip tight. Painful, almost. There was white noise in his brain, buzzing with arousal. 

He thrust into her, and his head exploded.

_Would you give up Silvermoon for her? The opportunity to bring the esteemed Grand Magister to his knees and make him beg for your forgiveness?_

_Would you stand by and watch, as her little lion sacrifices your people for his amusement, in the name of the pointless war they all swear is justified?_

_If she asked you to give up the Void, to imprison yourself in the unaltered, weak body of your birth, would you?_

_Suspecting all the while that you’re her last choice. That she would give herself to the boy king, the precious child she raised to be High King of an Alliance you don’t believe in, to Mathias Shaw and SI:7 and Stormwind, all before she would ever so much as look at you._

**_Knowing_** _that, should an event such as the Scourge swarm this infernal city, she would give her life for her king_ ﹣ **_her king_** ﹣ _and leave you to die?_

“Stop. Stop, stop, stop.”

"What?"

_You would do anything for her, but she will never do the same for you._

“Leave me alone!”

"Umbric?"

_When you march on Stormwind, she will stand in your way. And when you threaten the little king, she will kill you, without hesitation._

With a ragged scream Umbric pulled away, and when he shut his eyes, all he saw was Valeera, looming behind the double-edged blade of an orcish knife.

“Shit.” There was a scuffling noise, a panicked grunt. 

The whispers were right. They were right they were right they were right, and he was such a fool a fool a _fool._

No! No, they were wrong. They were wrong. They had to be. Valeera would stand by him, she loved him, she loved him more than King Anduin and her hideous Alliance﹣

_We both know that is a lie._

“Shit, shit, shit.” A hand came down on him then, its intent to soothe, but Umbric flinched away as though burned. 

“Don’t touch me!” His voice sounded strained and too harsh to his ears, and he felt then the horrible, tangible embrace of the Void. Smothering him, pulling him under. He didn’t know what would happen if he lost control, and felt himself teetering on the edge.

_Let go. Let go your restraints and fall unto the Void._

Images flickered into being behind his eyelids. Valeera, tainted with Void energies, _the only way to keep her with you._ Umbric, draped over the ancient phoenix seat in the Sunspire, Rommath to one side and Valeera the other, their skin sickly blue and eyes an empty black as he surveyed the distant purple-black pillar of light that was the corrupted Sunwell. Little King Anduin, golden head bent so close, whispering in Valeera’s long pointed ear and sharing with her a secret smile. His sapphire gaze trained on him as the lion’s guard bore him away, as Valeera turned her back on him.

“Hey…” Valeera did not try to touch him again, and he didn’t know if that made things better or worse. “Umbric, what happened? What can I do?”

_Ask her. If you believe in her, ask her yourself where her loyalties lay._

He couldn’t. What kind of question was that? How could he ask her something like that?

_You are afraid. You know what she will say, and it is not what you want to hear._

He had only himself to blame. He’d gotten attached. Why had he let this woman worm her way into his heart? 

Umbric took several deep breaths, sucking in so much air his lungs burned with it. He felt horribly vulnerable then, and groped for his discarded dressing gown. The fabric lay over him like a protective shell, but it didn’t make him feel much better.

“Umbric?”

The whispers were a rubber band, pulled silently taut. Waiting to snap again. To punch the wind right out of him. 

“Valeera.” The images remained when he opened his eyes, and he had to blink more than once to rid himself of the illusion of black eyes and blue skin. Precious emeralds, so wide they were near circles, stared back at him. 

“Valeera,” he said again. The name felt heavy on his tongue. His throat muscles screamed in protest at the sounds he forced from them, screamed that it was better to stay silent, that not every question deserved to be spoken aloud. That some answers were too great, too painful to be revealed.

“Do you love me?”

The question echoed through the flat, reverberating off the walls, bouncing against the hearth and its merry fire. A simple question, really. The simplest question there was.

Valeera’s eyes were perfect fel orbs, larger than Umbric thought it possible for eyes to be. “What?”

He grit his teeth, forced the words out again. “Do you love me?” It was an odd question, he tried to reason to himself, when a moment ago he’d been screaming, and several moments before that he’d been inside her. He’d shocked her, he told himself.

“Umbric.” And that wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no. The whispers, mercifully, were quiet. 

“Just… answer me.” He held her gaze and would not look away. “Please.”

There was a tightness to Valeera’s features that hadn’t been there before. Surprise, maybe. Hopefully. Anyone would be surprised, he reasoned, at this turn of events. 

“You…” She faltered, and when she spoke again her voice was soft. “You are very dear to me.”

And he supposed that was an answer. A good answer, even. Almost unambiguous, in a language like Thalassian. 

_“I lost someone very dear to me… To the Burning Legion.”_ But what did that _mean?_ Who _was_ that person to her?

Umbric felt his eyebrows come together heavily. He thought he might be scowling. “No.” He wanted explicit. So plain that there could be no room for doubt, that the whispers could no longer chip away at this single spot until it bled. He spoke slowly, and it pained him to have to repeat himself a third time. “Do you _love_ me?”

She tried again. “In… in my eyes, you are﹣”

“No!” He didn’t want another flowery phrase. _Ana’eran surfal. Say it._ “Damnit, Valeera, do you love me? Or was all this just a… just a lie?”

“No!” She looked stricken at the implication, tears welling along her lashes. “No, it… it wasn’t… a lie. How I feel is not a lie.”

 _“What_ do you feel?!” A frustrated growl shivered out of Umbric's mouth. “Tell me! Do you need me to go first? Have I not been obvious? Ana’eran surfal!” He smacked his open palm to the carpet for emphasis. “That’s how I feel. I love you. That’s what I want to hear. Ana. Eran. Surfal.”

He watched as all the color drained from Valeera’s face. As the swell of tears splashed at the dam of her lashline, threatening to overflow. “I…” 

“Please.” And he hated that he was begging, but he’d _seen_ it in her eyes. Whenever she folded against him beneath the covers, and whenever she made him ginger tea, and every single time his name graced her lips. He’d _seen_ it, and that was enough for him, but the whispers in his head would not quiet until she said it, plainly and out loud. 

She dropped his gaze, and his heart sank.

“Umbric…” And his name was a choked, pathetic sound in her mouth. He’d never heard her say it like that. “I… I can’t…”

_You were wrong._

His heart sat somewhere in his belly, succumbing without protest to the acid in his stomach. He’d never… not since…

_She doesn’t love you._

He hadn’t felt such… paindisappointmentangersorrow… since his exile. Since… since even the Scourge. 

Beside him, Valeera’s breathing was ragged. She sounded like she was trying very hard not to cry. “I can’t﹣”

“I got it the first time,” he said sharply. “You don’t have to explain.” His gut churned uncomfortably. 

She shook her head, the slightest movement of her otherwise motionless frame. She seemed to be wired in place, like a gnomish blingbot whose gears no longer turned. “You… you don’t under﹣”

“Please leave.” 

She froze. 

He didn’t want her to go, but he couldn’t bear for her to stay. His head was spinning. She’d said the past fourteen months were not a lie but﹣

_Yes they were. She lied to you. She deceived you the entire time._

Slowly, as if he were operating a body that didn’t belong to him, he rose. Took several halting steps in the direction of… anywhere. His study. The kitchenette. The spiral staircase up to his bedroom. Anywhere but here.

He inhaled mechanically, and without really feeling it drew the dressing gown closed. The sash had gotten lost somewhere in the… before. “Take a moment, if you need to,” he said, and he nearly succeeded in injecting a kindness he did not feel into the words. “But please. Get out.” 

He didn’t process how far he’d gone until his hand brushed the brass knob of his study door. It turned clumsily in his grip and he stepped inside. A sconce bearing a magelight jutted out of the wall nearby, and another in the engraved holder on his desk, but he left them dark. Umbric shut the door between him and Valeera and sank against it, legs finally giving out as he slid to the floor. For once, he was alone in his head. 

The study was dark, the storm outside casting a not inappropriate gloom through the window. Umbric shut his eyes and listened to the sharp pitter patter against the glass, the random _plink_ of what might have been ice, as if ice was a thing that could occur in the balmy climate of Stormwind. If he concentrated hard enough, he almost couldn’t hear the quiet, cracking sobs in the other room. 

She had lied to him. Somewhere along the way, Valeera had lied to him. He’d been wrong. 

Had he just projected his own emotions onto her? Had he just wanted so desperately to believe that someone could _care_ about him, for more than just his mastery over the Void or his skill at spellcraft ﹣ had he just wanted so badly to be seen not as a tool but as a _person_ that he’d imagined feelings that weren’t there?

It seemed a very long time before he heard the creak of the front door, the soft _click_ of the lock. And when he finally summoned the courage to step back out into the front room it was empty. Valeera’s wet clothes were absent, the naked space where they had hung mocking him in the stillness of the room. All the air had been sucked out with her departure; he couldn’t breathe. 

It was better this way, Umbric told himself. Valeera was… she wasn’t supposed to… 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was better that she was gone. 

It was better, that she didn’t love him. Umbric scrubbed a hand over his face, pretending not to notice the wetness left behind. 

_It was better this way._

* * *

The next day passed in a blur, and it wasn’t until he heard the celebratory gunfire at the fourteenth hour that it occurred to him: It was the fourth day of Winter Veil, and the anniversary of King Anduin’s birth. 

Valeera would be spending the day at the king’s side, as his mother, or lover, or... whatever she was to him. Umbric didn’t have the strength to sift through the Void’s truths anymore. As his _whatever,_ her place was in the Keep with the little king, not in Umbric’s flat with him. Upon realizing he had been keeping one ear trained on his front door for at least the past hour, a heavy sigh passed through him. He shut his book, which he hadn’t been reading anyway. Went back upstairs, and crawled into bed. 

She wasn’t going to appear on his doorstep. Not today. 

  
  
  


Only the singing ﹣ faint, its location difficult to discern through the drizzling rain ﹣ marked the days. The fifth, sixth, seventh days of Winter Veil found him holed up in his study, at times working or at least attempting. He couldn’t concentrate for long and in the end he always put his research aside. It would keep for another day. 

Conjured food didn’t rot, and as long as there was plenty of mana, it existed in an infinite supply. It wasn’t particularly nutritious ﹣ more taste than calories ﹣ but on the rare occasion his stomach protested its emptiness, a few bites of a conjured meal was enough to silence it again.

Umbric couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conjured meal. As he chewed, the faint taste of mana coating his tongue, his stomach cramped uncomfortably. Even pastries, the sweet, sugary cream once comforting and nostalgic, didn’t sit well in his gut, and they too were vomited up like all the rest.

Sometimes he found himself staring out the window, at the half view of the neatly manicured park in the center of the Mage Quarter, and beyond to the tent city belonging to the kaldorei refugees. A handful of them had been able to procure brick and mortar residences within the city ﹣ several of the former Shen’dralar had been adamant about securing a home in the quarter ﹣ but most were relegated to the large tent city on the far side of Olivia’s Pond, in the castle's shadow. A moonwell lived in the park, created long ago during the signing of the first treaty between the elves of Darnassus and the humans of Stormwind. Umbric couldn’t see it from his window but he could see the kaldorei, and even through the downpour he could see the silvery lights they had erected for the season. He wondered, in the back of his mind, if Valeera had gone to see the display as her kaldorei colleague had wished. 

Face crumpling, he drew the curtain over the window and pushed the thought from his mind.

  
  
  


It wasn’t until the twelfth day ﹣ and Umbric knew it was the twelfth day by the ringing of church bells signaling afternoon mass ﹣ that the fated knock came at his door, but it wasn’t Valeera. Of course it wasn’t Valeera. Valeera would be at the cathedral, with the little king. Listening as he led the city’s denizens in prayer.

“I know I’m not much, but I don’t think I quite deserve that look,” said Atynar pleasantly. In his hand he held a cylindrical object wrapped in brown paper, spotted with drops of rain. 

“Afternoon.” His voice sounded forced to his ears, but he had not the will to correct it.

“Happy Winter Veil.” Atynar thrust the package out. “This is from our dear friend Nicanor, who expresses his concern that you have not been at the Diel Thalas in over a week. We thought perhaps you’d been called out of the city.”

Umbric took the cylinder. It was sturdy and sealed at both ends with coarse twine. Some sort of scroll, probably, in the capped-ended cases common for their storage. It took him a moment to place it, to understand why Nicanor of all people would be gifting him a scroll for the holiday, but then the strange encounter with the flame-haired warlock came flooding back. The warlock must have looked very hard indeed, to deliver this before the holiday’s end. 

A few days ago, Umbric would have been elated at the appearance of the book he needed. Today the victory felt hollow, and even the tingling residue of mana seeping through the packaging could not bring him joy. 

“We’re having a party,” Atynar told him.

The scroll case _thunk_ ed as he put it down, terribly loud in his empty flat. “I’m afraid I’m not in the mood to celebrate.”

Atynar frowned. “Shani’s feeling better,” he added. “She’s been worried as well.”

And that was a dirty trick, invoking Shani like that. “How is she?” Umbric asked tonelessly.

His friend patted his own stomach. “You can see it now, when she turns.” A grin bisected his face. “Her stomach is still pretty dodgy, but she hasn’t been sick today. Nicanor made her some plain porridge and she seems to be keeping it down.” 

“That’s good.”

His friend sighed. “I’m sorry, magister, but I was told not to return without you.” He crossed his arms. “You might as well grab your cloak. I’m not missing twelfth day.”

  
  
  


The rain had lessened to a fine, freezing mist according to Atynar, who regaled him with word of the awful monsoon he’d been caught in overnight as they made their way through the city. Stormwind was quiet. There were few people on the streets, and those that were seemed to be heading home or towards the towering cathedral. As a mother and father dashed over the bridge towards the church, shielding a bundled toddler from the worst of the wind, Umbric wondered if Valeera would see them enter. If she too were attending church, praying to the Light beside her precious cub. The simple answer, the one he knew in his heart, was that yes, yes she was. Had even the Sunwell sheltered within the city’s walls, Umbric had no doubt that unless King Anduin stood at its shores, Valeera would not bask in its glow.

Turning away from the cathedral, Atynar’s words floated back to him, a feeble but ultimately insignificant tether to the here and now. Stormwind, with its neverending rains and meticulously crafted marble structures, was not his ideal Winter Veil getaway. Even Zandalar was preferable, despite the insufferable heat. But nothing compared to the orange-gold splendor of Quel’Danas.

Pilgrimage to the Sunwell was among the most important aspects of elven culture. A lucky few ﹣ high-ranking priests and magisters, and the Warden and his family ﹣ never left, tending to the sacred Sunwell Grove and its holy font in a covenant that reached back to the time of Dath’Remar. Tremendously skilled magisters, nearly all having achieved the rank of archmage before study in Dalaran had been forbidden, conducted secret, powerful research in the Magister’s Terrace, and the High Priest’s personal acolytes lived in humble accommodations on the outskirts of the small Dawnstar Village. The elite spellblade forces known as the Dawnblade trained on the bluffs, vicious defenders of the Warden and the well both, the last army between their most sacred artifact and the world.

Even they had fallen, though, to the might of Arthas Menethil and his undead legion.

Many elven families, before the Fall, made their journey in the spring. Spring in Quel’Thalas was a time for rebirth, for rebuilding, for new beginnings. The pious swore holy oaths before the golden waters, and families brought their new babies in droves to receive the divine blessing of the font itself. However, Umbric’s parents had always chosen to visit the Sunwell at Winter Veil, something Umbric hadn’t understood until he was much older.

 _“Winter Veil is meant to celebrate renewal,”_ his mother had explained, clutching his small hand in hers as their footsteps echoed over scarlet sanctum tiles. _“Greatfather Winter brings snow to erase the misfortunes of the past year, and provide a new, clean slate for the next.”_

 _“It doesn’t snow here,”_ Umbric had protested. 

But his mother had only smiled. _“It snows all over the world, little one. It’s not Greatfather Winter’s fault if it melts before touching the ground.”_ And then she’d knelt, and produced in her slim hand a palmful of perfect, crystalline snowflakes, which she gently blew in his giggling face. 

A pang shot through his chest then. It had been nearly twenty years since he’d spent Winter Veil on Quel’Danas, since he’d stood in the holy sanctum and the Warden trickled the precious, life-sustaining water over his head. Twenty years since he’d seen his mother, her sparkling blue eyes and warm smile. 

He missed her.

“I’ve returned!” Atynar shouted, throwing open the inn’s sturdy door. “And I’ve brought the good magister with me!” Unclasping his cloak, he threw it in the direction of the rack nearby. Missed. Frowned to himself before scooping it up and hanging it properly.

Several things assaulted Umbric all at once. The lights ﹣ the Diel Thalas was decorated in a frankly obscene amount of lights, from delicate conjured faerie lights to harsh, blinking electric bulbs in many colors ﹣ he hadn’t even known the inn was wired for electricity; perhaps it had been so during the renovations ﹣ and the blazing pyramid that turned out to be a squat conifer, standing proudly on display beside the bar. And the smells, good and familiar Thalassian foods marinating with strange pandaren cuisine and what appeared to be some sort of dwarven fare.

And the _sounds._ More ren’dorei were packed into the little inn than Umbric had seen squashed together in a long time. They took up every table, extra cushions having been brought from storage to accommodate them all, and a handful even sat on the stairs leading to the second floor, tankards or plates in hand. Several bore dark, even flushes, the hallmark of too much sun, and Umbric realized belatedly that they must have come from Zandalar. Sweeping his gaze around the room ﹣ _yes._ Danessa and Leana, Grady and all the rest ﹣ he had left them in Nazimir and Vol’dun and Zuldazar when he’d been recalled to the capital. 

The little king really had brought them home.

Only a handful were missing, he saw. Just the few in Xilbala, and Haalie and Shade. 

“Magister!” And that was Tysiel, popping up from the bar like a windup toy. Within moments she was handing off a mug of something amber and hot, passed down by many hands until it found its way to Umbric. “Happy Winter Veil!”

He tipped the mug at her, mouth turned up at the corners. “Happy Winter Veil.” It was cider, it seemed, and not the fruit juice from Quel’Thalas but some sort of hot, bastardized human version of it, and when he swallowed, alcohol burned the back of his throat. 

It wasn’t entirely terrible, he decided.

“Did you see the tree?” someone asked him.

“Look at these funny electric lights!”

“Don’t step on the Winterbot!”

With a bemused laugh, Umbric carefully sidestepped the bot ﹣ which resembled a bling clad in red and white ﹣ and dutifully turned his gaze where they directed him. 

“Presents,” said Aevedos, his usual sour expression softened into something almost… _fond._ “We got presents this year.”

Elestrae, an apron tied around her waist and a large tray in hand, nodded in agreement as she rounded the corner of the bar and the fat little tree. “The dwarven construction crew was _appalled_ we didn’t have electric lights.” Several pairs of hands reached for the tray as she approached the table.

“Some gnomish engineer did it,” Dewil supplied, his cheeks already a ruddy purple. “Aeve doesn’t like them.”

“I never said I didn’t like them.”

“You said you could’ve done it yourself and the glare hurts your eyes.”

“The glare _does_ hurt my eyes,” Aevedos grumbled. “Doesn’t mean they’re not nice to look at, for short periods of time.”

The Winterbot seemed to be a gnomish loan. Sporadically it would stop and shoot flurries of snowflakes up at the ceiling, which drifted gently down over assorted tables. The more intoxicated of the ren’dorei, some of whom had never seen snow at all, were both fascinated and a little frightened. 

“Magister Umbric!” shouted a voice over the din. “You came!”

“Sit _down.”_

And Atynar was shoving a protesting Nicanor back on his ass with a poof of overstuffed cushion. “Don’t let him up, sir,” he warned as Umbric approached. “He’ll start working again.”

“It’s my inn!” Nicanor protested.

A laugh tumbled from Umbric’s mouth. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” he promised, taking a recently vacated cushion. Nicanor rolled his eyes, but his annoyance was quickly replaced with a grin from ear to pointed ear.

“Glad you’re here this year.”

Umbric sipped at the hot cider. His stomach churned at the intrusion of alcohol in the empty space, but soon someone was placing a new basket of warm buttered rolls down beside a stack of freshly washed plates, and he reached for one. Bread was always safe, he’d learned, even with rich Stormwindian butter. “Certainly better than Boralus,” he remarked absently. “Thank you, for the book.”

Nicanor waved him off. “Delivered special this morning by imp courier. Scared poor Shani ﹣ she’s never had to deal with imps before.”

“Nasty creatures,” Umbric agreed. And then, “How is she?”

Nicanor pursed his lips for a moment, eyes glittering, before a certain calm washed over him, and he nodded over Umbric’s left shoulder. “Better,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid the excitement will be too much for her. She’s been in bed for days.”

Keira had told him that pregnancy made some women terribly sick, but turning to Shani he saw no trace of that. Perhaps she was a little paler, with tired lines beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before, but completely at ease as she chatted to Leana and Esmer, slightly too far away to be heard over the ruckus. Her long violet-black hair had been pulled into a neat braid, dainty bluish pearls glinting at her ears, and she’d traded her usual lilac silks for a festive and warm red and white knit dress. She was indeed beginning to show, and it was most obvious as she spun on her slippered heel, her belly swelling gently in profile. Nicanor held out his hand, reached for her across the room, and she crossed the short distance to take it. Allowed him to pull her down to the low table, a serene smile alighting on her face.

“Happy Winter Veil, Magister Umbric,” she said cheerfully. 

“Happy Winter Veil,” he echoed. He focused on her face, deliberately trying not to notice the lack of space between her and her husband, the way their knees brushed and how she leaned into him. It wouldn’t do to sully the mood with his personal agony. “I’m glad to see you and about. Without you here, the Diel Thalas seems a very dark place.”

Even her lipstick was red, he noted, a shade of ruby dangerously close to the color Valeera had worn in disguise on Zandalar, and when she smiled, her mouth made almost the same shape as well. “My apologies for my absence,” she murmured, eyes downcast. “I haven’t been feeling myself.”

Umbric shook his head. “Don’t apologize. We all understand.” She was not drinking the cider ﹣ couldn’t, probably, because of the alcohol, and instead had been handed a porcelain cup of a certain spicy scent that Umbric was sure was ginger tea. A moment later a plate piled high with food appeared from seemingly nowhere, first for Shani, and then two more for the men.

“Eat whatever you want,” she urged. “We’ve…” she giggled, “we’ve got more than we know what to do with. There are some strange dwarvish dishes ﹣ those came this morning, from the construction crew, and the Winterbot ﹣”

“They’re really good,” Nicanor swore.

“And Wen gifted us a selection of spices and a recipe book Atynar’s been working his way through.” Shani made a face. “I’m afraid to try those,” she confided.

“I’m afraid to try most of Atynar’s food,” Umbric joked quietly, but the elf in question was too far away to hear them. 

It was a funny sight, Umbric thought, a group of ren’dorei with questionable appetites surrounding platters of food, but the dishes were good and most were consumed with varying degrees of speed. Those that lingered seemed to be heavy, rich affairs, more likely to upset delicate stomachs, and nearly all desserts. The humans of Stormwind seemed quite fond of decadent pastries, particularly on the holidays, and just a few bites of any of them made Umbric’s belly hurt.

And all the while presents arrived. Some were passed between friends, those who until recently had been stationed far away, small, thoughtful gifts of a personal nature like Shani’s earrings. Many more were for the Wards, and when the stack beneath the fat, glimmering conifer overflowed, people began piling them along the wall, careful to leave several inches between the colorful paper and the rows of patrons’ wet boots. 

Nicanor slipped free of Atynar’s supervision at some point, and stole behind the bar to aid an overwhelmed Tysiel. Alcohol flowed freely, and despite the lack of available space, somehow the likes of Elestrae and Atynar managed to steal through, trays held high overhead and dishes distributed with much help to their owners. No one allowed Shani to work, and Umbric sat with her for company, her sweet, dulcet voice lulling and peaceful even over the noise.

“Magister Umbric,” she said at length, fixing him with a critical stare. “Is everything alright?”

Swirling the remains of cider in his mug, Umbric was silent for several beats. Shani had always been perceptive, and she would probably guess if he lied to her. But he didn’t think, amid the holiday celebrations, that she would call him out. Wouldn’t make a scene.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. Winter Veil always reminds me of my family, before…” He trailed off, and she didn’t ask him to elaborate. Rather, she breached the distance between them and laid a comforting hand on his arm. Squeezed.

It helped, somehow, and Umbric felt himself relax for the first time in several painful days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated and help Shani fight her morning sickness!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umbric reaches a decision and acts on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I'm not gonna lie - depression is kicking my ass hard and this combined with the lackluster reception I received on another fic really crippled my ability to write. I tried doing this chapter more times than I can count, and more than once I hated everything I wrote and started over completely. I think third rewrite's the charm though!
> 
> This chapter takes place several months after the last one, and the epilogue a few weeks later than the main part of this chapter.

There was a tauren in Stormwind Keep. Umbric didn’t know how he was supposed to react to that. No one else seemed fazed, even when the beast bent his great head down to rumble something apparently funny to little King Anduin, who laughed. _Shaw,_ even, was more interested in the tauren’s orcish guard than the tauren himself.

“Are we all here then?” asked the king, still smiling. “Let’s begin.”

“Ah, Baine,” came the luxurious voice of a certain black dragon. “You’ve my seat today."

“As the guest of honor should,” grumbled Greymane, taking his own at the king’s right hand. The downset of his mouth beneath his neatly maintained whiskers suggested that Wrathion had never deserved the seat opposite. 

Even Shaw settled into his customary chair without complaint, opening a handsome leather case and withdrawing a fresh sheet of parchment and a gnomish ink pen. 

_What is happening with the world,_ Umbric wondered, finding himself between Alleria and Jojo Ironbrow, the pandaren who represented Aysa Cloudsinger in all matters of state. He forcibly suppressed a gratuitous eyeroll ﹣ even with the tauren leader and apparent ambassador of the Horde in the city, Cloudsinger could not be bothered to involve herself in today’s meeting, while _both_ the commanders of the respective ren’dorei and Lightforged were in attendance, as well as at least a dozen humans from various organizations. 

Not for the first time, Umbric wished his life were as unbothered as Aysa Cloudsinger’s. 

They were supposed to be drawing up terms for an armistice. With Azshara gone and the Eternal Palace fallen, Umbric supposed there was no _real_ reason for the world to be at war, but then again, the red hadn’t needed a reason to start one after the Legion. Maybe if they were tied up in legalities, this new Horde Council would think twice about violating another ceasefire. 

Umbric didn’t really have a head for politics, but he was pretty sure snide comments and nitpicking were not getting them anywhere. Turalyon strongly implied that most of the Horde was illiterate and thus could not be stopped by a piece of paper. Greymane meticulously picked apart every single point until there was a “clear” line between it and attack. The Black Prince seemed to support both factions and at the same time neither, and every so often he would interject with, “Well this is all fine and dandy, gentlemen and ladies, but what we _must_ focus on is defeating N’Zoth,” which inevitably spawned an argument between Alleria and General Feathermoon, the former agreeing with the dragon while the latter seethed that the Horde _still_ had not paid for what had been done to Teldrassil and Darkshore and the Alliance seemed unconcerned with the kaldorei plight. It escaped the notice of no one that neither Tyrande Whisperwind nor Malfurion Stormrage were in attendance, and when Vindicator Boros gently pointed this out, Feathermoon snapped that at least _someone_ was doing something for her people. And Bloodhoof bore all this with a patient quietude that Umbric could not fathom himself possessing. 

“Please, order! Silence, everyone!” the little lion demanded, spreading his arms wide. The light caught on a thin bracelet encircling one scarred wrist before it disappeared once more beneath his sleeve. “Baine has not come all this way to listen to petty squabbles!”

All Umbric cared about was one line in the treaty, which at this pace would surely take the next few hours to reach: _Immediate evacuation of the invaded countries_ ﹣ _Zandalar (Zuldazar, Nazmir, Vol’dun) and Kul Tiras (Tiragarde Sound, Stormsong Valley, Drustvar)_ ﹣ _by the opposing forces, so ordered as to be completed within fifteen days. Troops of the opposing faction which have not left the above mentioned territories within the period fixed shall be made prisoners of war…_

With such a clause, the ren’dorei camp at Xibala would be dismantled, its research disrupted and unfinished, and while Umbric didn’t give two fucks what this would mean for the Alliance, his ren’dorei _needed_ that research. The strange energies given off by the entity known as the Dark Chronicler were fascinating and sure to be the focal point of more intense, invasive experiments down the line. It was unlike the Void and the cold, calming pull of the unknown, and yet was irresistible all the same. Perhaps the Dark Chronicler would give them an edge over the Light’s holy warriors, would give them the means to crush Anduin Wrynn’s Light-blessed bones beneath their feet and overwhelm the sacred waters of the Sunwell… Even Rommath would not be able to stand in the face of such might.

He almost didn’t notice when the recess was called, were it not for the irritably exhausted huff that blew itself from Alleria’s puffed cheeks. 

By the Sunwell, they were going to knab themselves a raw deal in this armistice if they kept this up.

  
  
  


The peace talks lasted several days. On the third day Wrathion nearly dashed all their progress ﹣ they’d just made it to the second page of terms ﹣ by declaring them all foolish and obtuse and demanding to know _right then_ what their plans for N’Zoth and the invasion of Ny’alotha were. The set of Shaw’s jaw was audible even across the room, the grind of his teeth and squeaking of enamel, and it gave Umbric no small pleasure to imagine the massive headache the spymaster would suffer for it later. He liked Wrathion just for that, he decided. 

The fifth day saw them dismissed early after the old worgen and the Lord Commander both lost their tempers and Alleria shot up and began shouting at them across the room. Alleria was decidedly _not_ a politician, and in Umbric’s opinion should never have been invited to the armistice talks at all. Rangers were flighty and hotheaded and better off left rotting in the woods, and Alleria was, at her core, just a ranger who had massively overstepped her station. 

Tauren were mountains of tightly coiled muscle with thick horns made for goring, and how Bloodhoof didn’t lose his shit and physically cow them into agreement was a mystery Umbric couldn’t help but ponder as he trudged through the keep. It was raining again today ﹣ the late spring showers, he’d been told ﹣ and he wasn’t quite ready to set out in it. The creeping humidity made his skin clammy and his hair frizz and was just altogether unpleasant. 

“His Highness is enjoying an early supper with the High Chieftain,” came a clipped, sour voice, “though I’m sure he would not object to your intrusion. Baine has asked after you a number of times since arriving in the city.”

“Is it only Baine?” And the answering tone, vaguely stern and warm and _familiar,_ stopped Umbric in his tracks. Ears twitching involuntarily towards the noise, he stood as if flash frozen. He couldn’t move even if he’d wanted to. 

“In that regard,” Shaw acquiesced. “He and his guard have been given a suite down the hall from yours, and I’ve found no other Horde presence in the city.” 

There was a pregnant pause. “And the dragon?” It sounded like Valeera was speaking through her teeth.

The disdain was so thick Umbric could almost taste it as Shaw replied, “Still here.”

_Befriending the dragon will immediately raise the spymaster’s suspicions, but it will be easy to corrupt the prince and use him for your own ends._

A frustrated growl rumbled down the hall. “For how long?”

“I would assume until the armistice has been signed. He’s been very aggressive about the push into Ny’alotha.”

Valeera snorted. “He can go himself, and die there.” 

“You shouldn’t speak like that in the halls.” Was that… _fondness_ in Shaw’s voice?

“Uh huh.” And Umbric had never heard anyone speak with such insolence to the spymaster. “I suppose I’ll go see Anduin then.”

“He’ll be pleased you’re back.” Umbric pictured Shaw nodding. “It’s been a long time.” 

Valeera had left the city shortly after Winter Veil, and while a part of Umbric hoped he was the cause ﹣ that their argument had affected her so badly that she couldn’t bear to chance coming across him ﹣ he knew better. It was too perfect timing but she had most likely been deployed on some mission or other. Hadn’t she mentioned Quel’Thalas a few weeks before? 

He would not admit that _he_ had done that. Even the keep, sterile and infuriating, was tainted by housing Valeera’s living quarters, and he could not go anywhere in Stormwind without imagining the sweep of a red cloak, or sunlit hair tangled in the breeze. The Diel Thalas saw quite a lot of him for a time, being one of the few places in which Valeera had never set foot, but eventually the prodding of Nicanor and Atynar and even Shani had been too much. He slept badly, and no matter how many times he changed the sheets they still smelled of _Valeera._

He’d put in a request to return to Xibala, and lost himself in difficult research and raptor attacks and the faraway booms of goblins exploding on the beach. Xibala had been where this all began but without Valeera there it was quiet, far removed from those close, sweltering nights all those months ago. No one mentioned her. It was like she didn’t exist, and in time the ache in his chest throbbed only in his darkest, weakest moments. 

If she’d been in Nazjatar, if she was part of the storming of the Eternal Palace, Umbric hadn’t seen her, and honestly had been a bit preoccupied with _not dying_ to notice if she was. With the collapse of Azshara’s magicks and the hasty evacuation of the naga city, Valeera had been driven from his mind for the first time in months. 

But here she was. Just around the corner, talking to _Shaw._ She hadn’t come to see Umbric. Hadn’t sought him out upon her return to the city. Probably hadn’t thought about him at all. 

Shaw’s voice dropped then, just the barest suggestion of a sound as he asked, “Everything alright now, Ms Sanguinar?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Valeera snipped. Umbric saw her expression clearly in his head. It wasn’t as obvious in Common, but he was sure that was the tone she used when she felt the speaker had stepped too close to the line. “I’m fine.” 

“Of course,” Shaw said after a short pause. “My mistake.” 

Valeera was probably making a face, Umbric thought, ears twitching against the soft scuffling of footsteps. That was something she would do. Just as she was now leaving Shaw in search of the little king, seeking him out to announce her return as she would not do for him. The small voice in the back of Umbric’s mind cried out for her. _Please. Just once, just this one time. Choose me. Come back to me._

He quashed it quickly, and his heels clicked loudly against the stone floor as he stalked in the opposite direction. 

* * *

Umbric’s head was pounding. They had ended talks early again today, after a lot of yelling over scholarly pursuits on the other’s territory. Mechagon had been the main focus, but Umbric had argued vehemently in favor of Xibala ﹣ he really didn’t care _what_ happened to Mechagon, even if those weird robo-gnomes were technically their allies now ﹣ and was drowned out immediately when the old worgen angrily vetoed Bloodhoof’s suggestion that Horde shamans and mages be allowed to study the ways of the tidesages. He didn’t remember what Proudmoore’s response had been. 

Valeera had been there today, just in the corner. It had been so difficult not to look at her. Not to seize her by the hand and demand she speak to him. Confess his love again, and pray this time she would return it. Yell at her for all the lies she had told him, all the pain she had caused. 

His entire body flinched as the Void twinged irritably inside him. 

It wasn’t like Valeera cared how he felt anyway.

Yesterday’s small voice was back, whispering that he was in the keep, where Valeera lived, and what was to stop him from seeking her out and talking to her? Surely, with some time and distance between them, things were different now? Of course she couldn’t say anything to him in the council hall, but nothing prevented them from speaking now. 

_Stay focused. No matter what you think, she will not help you if you threaten her precious cub. And you cannot reclaim Silvermoon without breaking the blue chains that bind you._

No. No, he couldn’t. The Alliance would never allow the ren’dorei to march on Silvermoon, would never allow the corruption of the Sunwell. His own grudges aside, he _had_ to kill Anduin Wrynn if he had any hope of moving forward. 

Wasn’t that what this had all been for? Wasn’t that what they’d all been working toward? Rommath had banished them for pursuing knowledge that would save them all, because of the threat Void empowerment posed to him and his magisters. Had declared the Void a danger to the Sunwell, without ever trying to understand what the Void was at all. When Arthas Menethil had destroyed the city and tainted the well with his foul death magicks, it had been the magisters who’d been charged with the discovery of an alternate, life-giving power, and by the Sun, _he had found one._

_I can help you,_ the Void had promised, and suddenly all the deaths ﹣ his father bleeding out in his mother’s arms, his friends and cousins and colleagues, even beloved King Anasterian himself ﹣ hurt less with the promise of vengeance sweet on his tongue and singing in his blood. Not only would they restore the Sunwell with the bountiful energies of the Void, not only would they secure Quel’Thalas against every peril for all eternity, but they would _destroy_ the humans who’d abandoned them, and show them how it felt to lose everything in one long, horrible night. 

Rommath hadn’t seen it that way. 

_“Magister Umbric, I hereby accuse you of conspiracy against Silvermoon and all Quel’Thalas, and charge you with espionage, sedition, and collusion with a known hostile entity. You are to present for immediate destruction all research and documentation of contact with any and all eldritch fiends and surrender yourself here and now. Should you fail to do this you will be labeled a terrorist and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent under the law. Do you understand?”_

_Umbric felt all the air leave his lungs. Before him stood Arcanis Mechanica, the Grand Magister’s mechanical guard, and the Lady Liadrin, flanked on either side by a contingent of blood knights and a squadron of arcane guardians. The Blood Matriarch wore full plate, her gloved hand gripping the pommel of the gleaming sword slung at her hip. Arcanis Mechanica loomed over her, its faceless form daunting in the small space of the lab._

_“Excuse me?” slipped out before he could catch it. “What is the meaning of this?”_

_“The Grand Magister has deemed you a threat to the safety and security of the Sunwell.” The words echoed off the blood red walls. “You and your insurgents are to come with me without resistance.”_

_“Insurg_ ﹣ _hey! Don’t touch_ ﹣ _get your hands off me!”_

_He’d demanded an audience once they’d thrown him and his team in the dungeons. “I want to speak to the Grand Magister!” he’d screamed._

_But it wasn’t Rommath who’d shown up. “The Grand Magister is busy,” Erindae Firestrider informed him coldly, looking down her perfect nose in disdain. “I will relay to him anything relevant.” There was perhaps no one else in Silvermoon able to speak with the authority of the Grand Magister but her, and by sending his assistant in his place, he’d blatantly told Umbric how low he truly ranked. Ice shivered down his spine._

_“The Regent Lord then!” he spat. “I have a right to present myself for trial before him and him alone!”_

_But the Regent Lord wasn’t interested in his pleas. He sat, not on the old phoenix throne but a new handsome cathedra of power, the tallest and grandest of an otherwise identical trio, stonefaced and unyielding._

_“We haven’t done anything wrong!” Umbric protested. “He can’t arrest us!”_

_The Regent Lord didn’t so much as blink. “I assure you, Magister Umbric, he can.” The wood creaked softly as he leaned forward, his one eye gleaming dangerously. Spearing him in place, and in the span of an instant rifling through every furious and unclean thought he’d ever had. “The Sanctum remains under the jurisdiction of the Grand Magister, and he informs me that you and your research pose a grave threat to national security. I have to say, the things I have read disturb me greatly. How do you explain yourself?”_

_“My team and I are working to transform the Void into an asset, Regent Lord. You can see for yourself how powerful it is, and if we could only control it_ ﹣ _”_

_“You can’t control the Void!” Rommath was on his feet now, fists clenched. “You would make us slaves!”_

_Cold beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and Umbric felt his chest constrict. “No! There have been instances, powerful mages_ ﹣ _”_

_“There has been no one! Every single mage whose work your own draws on has been driven to death or insanity! Would you become another Solarian? Another Drathir? Should we simply lie down and allow the Void Lords to run rampant through the remains of our kingdom and pollute our newly restored Sunwell?” The Grand Magister’s face was screwed up in rage, flaming crackling through his fingers. The floor smoldered beneath his feet. “Light and Void cannot coexist! You would doom us all!”_

_“The Void would_ **_serve_ ** _us_ ﹣ _”_

_“THE VOID SERVES NO ONE!”_

_“Rommath.” The Grand Magister looked as though he would say more, but at a word from the Regent Lord he fell silent. “I’ve heard enough.” Theron looked to his left but if the Ranger General had his own opinions he kept them to himself, sunken in his chair and frowning._

_“I stand by the order of the Grand Magister,” Theron announced. “You and your cohorts have until nightfall to gather what you can carry_ ﹣ _excluding your research. You will live out the rest of your days in the Ghostlands and never set foot in Eversong Woods again.”_

_Umbric couldn’t breathe._

_“Should you tarry, or find yourself in northern lands once more, I will order your arrest, and you will be tried for treason.”_

_This couldn’t be happening._

_“Do you understand?”_

_The Ghostlands. Southern Quel’Thalas. A forest of decay where no living thing remained…_

_“You’ll kill us all!”_

_The look on Rommath’s face said it plainly: “Better you than us.”_

His chest unclenched as he inhaled the damp, salty air of Stormwind. Sometimes, when he thought of the horrors they’d endured in the Ghostlands, he could hardly believe any of them were here at all.

They hadn’t died. No doubt to the chagrin of the Grand Magister. How many floors had suffered from Rommath’s angry flames?

Umbric wondered dimly if he would suffer them again, and how hot they had to burn before the pleasure became pain. He would find out one day. When he conquered Silvermoon ﹣ when he conquered _Rommath_ ﹣ he would discover firsthand the limits of the Grand Magister’s control, and Umbric would break him.

There was never any room in this plan for Valeera, and he had selfishly ignored that fact to sate his own despicable desires. There was no way to make her fit, not without warping everything that she was. Not without stripping her of what made her _Valeera_ and turning her into a servant of the Void. 

_That_ was what the whispers had been trying to tell him. In no reality could they see her joining him of her own free will. They had been trying to _protect_ him. Why hadn’t he understood that?

_You are soft hearted for this woman._

Yes, he was.

_You think you need her._

Yes, he did. Valeera had been there for him in his worst moments, without questions or judgments. Even just the sight of crimson, even if it wasn’t attached to her, reminded him of her and put him at ease, even if now it made his heart ache. Her warm concern had always chased away the worst of the nightmares and visions, had kept him grounded when reality shattered around him. 

_You didn’t need her to defy Rommath. You didn’t need her to survive the Ghostlands._

No. He’d done those things on his own, fueled by fear and hatred and a foolish, desperate desire to prove himself. 

Well. Wasn’t he doing that now?

_She will only hold you back, and you are not strong enough to kill her, when it finally comes to that._

No, he wasn’t. Because it _would_ happen, the whispers were right. The moment he moved on the king Valeera would appear from the shadows and gut him like the animal he was. And he wouldn’t be able to lift a finger against her in his own defense. 

But the Void could. And would. It purred beneath his skin at the thought.

_You can’t do that to her._

No, he couldn’t.

_You can’t put her in that position._

No, he couldn’t.

_It would destroy her to kill someone she loves, and don’t you believe she loves you? Don’t you love her?_

He did. _Fuck,_ he loved her _so much._ He’d never loved anyone so much, and this was the reason why. Letting someone in, caring about them and being cared for in return, waking up to them in the cozy morning sunlight and sharing his food, his space, his _life_ ﹣ it _hurt._ It hurt more than listening to his parents’ terrified screams, more than the loathing splashed across Rommath’s face, more than every single ren’dorei death. He couldn’t _do_ this anymore. 

_It has to stop._

“Umbric?” 

And there she was. As if summoned by his thoughts alone, Valeera stood before him, her face a carefully constructed mask, mouth turned down in a slight frown. Her beautiful hair was bound in a thick braid to combat the cloying humidity of late spring, held together with scarlet ribbon, twin to the one hidden in Umbric’s own bedroom. The tips of her ears were curled in concern. 

“V-Valeera.” His heart hammered against his ribs, threatening to punch out his chest and show his pathetic weakness for all to see. It was all he could do to remain as he was, to shove his hands deep in his pockets. To not reach for her ﹣ forsake the Void and everything he’d worked so hard for, for a chance at the storybook happiness being with her would bring. 

He fixed his face, tamped down the emotions swirling inside him. Stood up a little straighter. The whispers were right. He couldn’t do this to her. “I’d heard you were back.”

Shit. He’d meant to say that it in Common. That was how they’d spoken to each other before… in the beginning. As strangers. Cogs in the Alliance machine, and nothing more. The Thalassian had slipped out, and he couldn’t take it back now. 

She nodded, eyes darting away for the briefest moment before again meeting his own. “Great timing, I suppose,” she murmured, and he didn’t know if she was referring to their last parting or to Bloodhoof’s arrival. A traitorous part of himself hoped it was the former, if only to acknowledge what had happened. To admit she still thought of him, even just once.

Somewhere down the hall, rounding the corner, someone was laughing. Soft footsteps shuffled away, deep in jovial conversation that did not extend to them. 

“I heard what happened in Nazjatar,” Valeera continued, shifting her weight almost imperceptibly to her other foot. “I’m glad you’re alright.” 

His stomach flipped uncomfortably. Hope bubbled in his chest. 

“I think…” And here she hesitated, vulnerability blooming so brazenly in the space between that Umbric’s heart swelled. “We should talk,” she said at length. “Are you free?”

His breath caught. Was she…? Did she mean…?

Valeera had asked him many questions in the time they’d known each other, but she’d never asked anything _of_ him. And here she was, asking for his time so that they could… what? Start over?

_You can’t do this to her._

Light, he wanted to so badly…

_It stops now. Soften the blow of killing the king. It will hurt her less if she already hates you._

His nails bit into his soft palms as his fists clenched. Pressed them hard against his thighs within the confines of his robes.

“No,” Umbric bit out. “I’m not.” 

Shock flashed briefly in her perfect emerald eyes. “Oh.” 

_I’m sorry,_ he thought. _Forgi_ ﹣ _no. I’m sorry._

“How about﹣”

“No.” It hurt, being this curt with her. He’d never spoken so coldly to Valeera before. “This doesn’t work. Us, together.”

Valeera Sanguinar was never meant to be anything more than a carnal pleasure, something to take his mind off of the oppressive Zandalari heat and dino-necromancy and his rapidly building hatred for the Alliance. He’d gotten distracted. Somewhere along the way she’d pulled his attention from his ultimate goal, from Silvermoon and the Sunwell and Rommath. That was unacceptable. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

For her sake, that was all she could ever be. For her sake, she had to hate him so his inevitable betrayal would not wound her too deeply. He had to hurt her, so badly there was never any chance she would forgive him.

Because if she came back, even after all that… Umbric wouldn’t be able to turn her away again.

“We let this﹣” he gestured mechanically between them “﹣get away from us. I think we can both agree this… _relationship_ never should have happened, and has been more trouble than it's worth.”

The world consisted of only Umbric and Valeera then, for the last time. As the icy, disconnected words poured from his lying mouth, he did his best to imprint her just as she was in his mind’s eye. The peculiar shade of her silky hair, so like the delicate golden embroidery he preferred. The curve of her cheek, the memory of his hand pressed to her soft skin. Cupid’s bow lips, pink and perfect, open now in the smallest ‘o’ of shock. The almost artistic, aesthetically pleasing angle of her ears relative to her large eyes. Perfect almond-shaped gems set into the masterpiece that was her porcelain face. 

He would never be this close to her again.

“﹣don’t know why I said those things over Winter Veil. The emotional turmoil of a particularly nasty vision, I suppose﹣”

The cut of her clothing ﹣ today a slim-fitting, long tunic whose hem nearly reached her knees. Almost a dress, really, and under any other circumstance very pretty. It didn’t quite match the red of her hair ribbon, being a little lighter… Cherry, rather than scarlet. The cut was very Thalassian in style. Single-layered, without so much as a shift beneath it. 

“﹣really don’t have the time for the luxury of a relationship. I’ve fallen quite behind on my work, and my personal projects have suffered tremendous strain thanks to my diverted attention﹣”

The location of each and every scar, burned into his memory. The thin silvery line streaking down her shoulder, some long-healed slash that looked nearly painted on. The curious gnarled pucker on her abdomen, just under her ribs, that she told him once had come from a fight with a troll. The dark angry remnant of a horrible accident through three fourths of her left bicep, and the dusky triangle-shaped scar kissing the meat of one palm. The too-smooth patch of Light-healed skin, wide as his own hand, in the middle of her back, and a trio of small wounds dotting her thigh. The old discolored burn that ran up most of one leg, the skin smoothed by Light but not quite the same. He knew every inch of her better than he knew himself.

“﹣and to be frank, given our positions a relationship is extremely inappropriate and more than likely the cause of my own lack of advancement. I’m afraid I hold more than a little resentment over﹣”

His own eyes burned at the edges, and he tried very hard not to blink, but Valeera did not cry. He knew he would, if she were saying these words to him.

“﹣best for us to go our separate ways, and pretend this regrettable transaction never happened.” 

Was there an echo or was he imagining it? Was it irrational right now to wish for the floor to open beneath him and swallow him whole?

_If she hates you it won’t hurt. You’re doing her a favor._

“I’m sorry,” he concluded, and everything in him screamed to just _stop talking_ right there, “that I gave you the impression we were something more.” 

More movement down the hall, this time coming from behind her. Umbric caught a glimpse of one of the castle stewards, starched coat a navy blob in the distance, crossing through to the alcove on the other side, feet a quick black blur. A square of white was clutched in one hand. Probably some missive or another meant for the king. 

For the briefest moment he caught Valeera’s reaction ﹣ the shock, the _hurt_ ﹣ and his heart dropped into his stomach. And then just as quickly it was gone, walls thrown up so quickly it was like they had always been. This was the look she would give him from now on, if she ever deigned him worthy enough to look at again: this harsh, guarded stare, elegant blonde eyebrows angled together, ears stiff and straight against her scalp. 

“I see. Thank you for your honesty.” Each word cut into him, and he welcomed the pain. He deserved it. He needed it. “Well then.” She shifted again, placing her weight hard on the heel of one foot. Ready to turn away from him, for the final time. “I won’t keep you from your business.” She leaned back, body angling towards the hall behind them. “Good day, magister.” 

The world roared in his ears as she walked away, drowning out the little voice telling him to take it all back, to go after her, to _do_ something. He didn’t think he was breathing. His heart beat so loudly he couldn’t hear himself inhale. His chest throbbed so painfully he couldn’t feel the intake of air. He forced himself to watch her go.

 _This is your fault,_ he told himself. _You got involved. You thought you could have it all._

_How could you ever think you could claim someone like Valeera Sanguinar?_

_How could you ever think you were worthy?_

A heavy weight settled in his stomach. Valeera Sanguinar would _never_ fit into his plans, and he’d been foolish to try and make her. He’d pledged himself to _Silvermoon_ long ago, not her, and nothing could stand in the way of his return. 

It was a long time before he moved, and he didn’t realize where he was going until he felt the familiar crunch of gravel beneath his embroidered slipper. Diel Thalas. The one place he could be sure he would never see Valeera. 

_It’s better this way,_ Umbric thought, dragging his heavy body along the path. _I have to go home, and she’ll never follow me there. I have to go_ **_home._ **

He’d dedicated his entire life to returning to Silvermoon. He didn’t care how it was done ﹣ he _would_ walk its rosestone streets again, he _would_ eat at its pubs and shop in its stores, and he _would_ take his place in the Magisters’ Sanctum once more, and for all the trouble he'd incurred, all the injustices he'd suffered ﹣ for Rommath’s insolence ﹣ he would take his place upon the phoenix throne of ancient Sunstrider kings and rule for the next three thousand years, tucked away safe from the rest of the world. 

How could Valeera Sanguinar ever compete with a dream like that?

* * *

EPILOGUE

Diel Thalas was a flutter of activity, ren’dorei flying in and out, some with fat coin purses in hand and others with shopping bags and large, wrapped gifts. Even Alleria had made an appearance, her alien presence nearly unnoticed but there nonetheless in the commotion. Keira hadn’t left the inn in days, and Elestrae was trying to persuade her to stop and eat something.

“I know,” Keira was saying tiredly. “I know they’re okay, I’m just…”

Elestrae nodded, her dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. “We all are," she finished. "But they’re _fine,_ you said so yourself.”

Atynar flopped down beside them, and laid himself out like a heathen on the floor. No one commented on it. “I’m _exhausted,”_ he announced loudly, to no one in particular.

“Just think how Shani feels.”

The baby was early, Umbric had been told. It had been Dewil who’d alerted him, nearly breaking the wards on his front door and hauling him bodily down the Mage Tower stairs. He felt like a father himself, waiting anxiously for news as Shani labored for sixteen hours. Someone said that wasn’t normal, he remembered, and someone else said first pregnancies always resulted in long labors. A messenger in Alliance blue had come at some point from the keep with a summons ﹣ some council about Silithus and Ny’alotha, no doubt ﹣ but Umbric hadn’t gone, and he supposed Alleria had attended in his place. For once he didn’t care. Those were her people, and these were his. 

Silence fell as the door leading to the Wards’ soundproofed annex finally opened, and a very tired, very pale Nicanor stepped out. He’d been awake for thirty-two hours, someone had said, sitting with Shani. Keira had tried to throw him out, Umbric heard, but he wouldn’t go. Umbric didn’t think it was usual for husbands to be present during labor but then again, what did he know?

A wide grin bisected his face as Nicanor announced, “It’s a girl! She’s five pounds, six﹣ Oof!” The words snuffed out as Atynar crushed him in a hug, as a loud cheer went up through the inn. Someone started crying. Nicanor was definitely crying, huge fat tears of relief and happiness and utter exhaustion, clinging to his friend as though unable to stand any longer on his own. There was a stampede to envelope the new father in a sea of arms, and for the first time in weeks Umbric’s mind was clear and his heart didn’t ache. He pulled Nicanor to him and thumped him heartily on the back and didn’t mind at all the tears cried on his shoulder. 

That was several days ago. Most of the ren’dorei had gone home in the interim, if they had one, though Keira and Atynar had both taken rooms. The inn wasn’t officially open but that hadn’t stopped the constant traffic. Wen Fon had been by to deliver his congratulations and to present a gift in a gold-monogrammed red envelope. King Anduin had come in person and while Shani and the baby were sleeping, he’d been able to speak briefly to Nicanor and congratulate him as well. Ren’dorei stationed all over Azeroth poured in, though they didn’t want to stay long and intrude on the new family, which resulted in a slightly comical checking in every hour or so. Everyone wanted to see Shani, who was too tired for visitors, and especially the new baby girl, who Keira ruled was not allowed to have any. 

Betting had started for the baby’s name. In old Quel’Thalas, a child was named for a quality admired by its parents ﹣ Nicanor’s name meant _steadfastness_ and Shani’s _humility_ ﹣ but the Scourge had changed that, and most new babies were now named for dearly departed family and friends, the taboo in reusing a name disappearing almost overnight and vying with the new taboo of prying into one’s past. Umbric heard much talk that only a few days previous would have been considered a gross impoliteness as people threw money into the name pool.

“Magister Umbric.” He blinked owlishly over his tea, vision a little fuzzy after staring in thought at nothing. Aowyn, fresh from Xibala, had dropped down beside him, her thick curls glossy and unfrizzled in the Stormwindian air. Vaguely, he wondered how she’d accomplished that.

After a moment, he noticed she was pushing a sheet of parchment towards him.

“Have you put a name into the pot?” she inquired. “I didn’t want to presume, so I guessed something traditional.” No, Aowyn wouldn’t be one of those plying Atynar with questions about the Wards, trying to deduce who in their lives would win the honor of bestowing their name upon new life. She was too polite for that.

He shook his head. “I can’t decide,” he admitted. And Atynar was most likely to win in any event. He was the one who knew the Wards best. Umbric had chipped in, of course ﹣ the money was a consolidated gift to the new family, and whoever guessed the correct name humbly won only bragging rights. But he wasn’t sure, when he really thought about it, what his friends would do, and it seemed invasive to guess in this manner. It wasn’t truly his business, after all, or any of theirs for that matter. 

Someone reached over and took the parchment from her, giving Umbric a way out of the conversation. So much about being ren’dorei went against what they’d all been forced to adopt in the wake of Arthas Menethil’s march of the undead, and even the way they’d grown up. Sitting in Diel Thalas when it was technically closed was rude, and so was drinking its wine and eating its food, but plenty of them were doing it and no one had complained. Prying into the Wards’ lives was rude, and invading their privacy in this way, but he supposed this was the exception. This birth was the biggest, most important thing to happen in their little community in over twenty years, and perhaps they deserved a temporary reprieve from the rigidity and struggle that had plagued them for so long. 

“I’ve heard we’re going to Silithus,” Aowyn said quietly. “Do you know when?”

He didn’t. He thought that was probably the subject of the meeting he’d missed. “No,” Umbric confessed. 

“I hope it’s not as grueling as the Zandalar campaign.”

Silithus was a desert, and there was a giant fucking sword sticking out of it into the heavens. The planet was literally bleeding, and the Void had made the place its playground. If anything, it promised to be worse than Zandalar. 

Umbric pasted a smile on his face. “Let’s hope not.” He wasn’t going to dampen her mood. Not today. Not if he didn’t have to. One small lie wouldn’t hurt, and would keep the atmosphere in the inn cheery and light. They all needed that.

“Nica!” Atynar shot off the ground like a springboard when the annex door cracked open. Nicanor, once more dressed not for company but in an old shirt and sleeping pants and looking for all the world like he’d only just awoken, rolled his eyes with bleary bemusement. “Welcome back to the land of the living!”

“Good morning.”

“Good evening,” Keira corrected. “Everything alright?” She made to get up, and stilled as Nicanor held out his hand. 

“Everything’s fine,” he soothed. The room, not as full as it had been that first day, quieted. Eleven pairs of eyes honed in on the innkeep, followed by a mild curse as Aevedos stabbed himself with his own knitting needles. “I wanted to tell you all,” he said softly, “that we named the baby Selama, and that she squeaks when she hiccups.” He giggled tiredly. “It’s really cute.”

“Selama, sinu a’manore!” someone cheered, punching their fist in the air. _Well met, Selama!_

“Selama Ward’delah surfal!” _We love you, Selama Ward!_

“Selama belore bal’a dash!” _Greet the sun, Selama!_

“Selama ashal’anore!” A play on words ﹣ _Justice for our people!_

In the din, the scrabbling for the parchment of names and the clanging roar somehow just as loud with eleven people as it had been with fifty-four, Umbric heard Atynar ask Nicanor if they’d eaten, and without waiting for an answer jumped up and marched himself towards the kitchen. Nicanor ran a hand through his rumpled hair and gestured. 

“Magister. A word?”

They found themselves in Diel Thalas’s large kitchen, the door not quite blocking out the cheering on the other side. Atynar was already peering into a gently simmering pot, an apple neatly cubed on the counter beside him. 

“Congratulations once more, my friend,” Umbric said earnestly. “You must be proud.”

Nicanor’s grin turned into a jaw cracking yawn, and it was a moment before he could reply, “So proud. Thank you.” 

“How is Shani?”

“Still very tired,” Nicanor confessed. “It wasn’t an easy labor, and the baby ﹣ _Selama,_ by the Sunwell. I can’t believe she has a name now ﹣ Selama cries a lot. Keira says that’s normal but…” He huffed a laugh. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been awake so long.”

Umbric frowned. “Are you﹣?”

“We’re okay,” Nicanor assured him. “We’ve weathered much worse than a crying baby.” 

And that was true. In the beginning, when they were all just learning how to live with the Void, the Wards had been among those who tended the suffering, and some of the few who hadn’t suffered in turn for it. 

“I did… want to talk to you, though.” And suddenly Nicanor looked uncomfortable, and fear twisted in Umbric’s gut. 

“Of course. Anything. Go on.”

Atynar’s ears flicked in their direction, but he didn’t turn from the stove. Perhaps he already knew. 

“Selama… She’s very pale,” Nicanor started. “She’s got black hair, but Shani and I both, before…” Self consciously he ran his hand through the aforementioned locks. “She’s not…” 

“She’s not like us,” Atynar supplied. He’d been one of the few allowed to see the baby. “We don’t think she’s _ren’_ dorei at all. Even Keira says so.”

Oh. _Oh._ Well that… That was certainly something. 

“Her eyes are blue,” Nicanor said hurriedly, “so she’s not touched by the fel, but…”

But her birth proved that the ren’dorei were without question a finite race, and once the last of the original one hundred and fifty-two perished, that was it. No more. Their legacy fell with them. 

Hope died in his chest. The birth of an elven child was a joyous event, no matter what kind of elf… but Umbric could not deny that he was disappointed. Though he would not wish the horrors of the Void on anyone, its power and gifts were not evil, and he was saddened that they had not extended to baby Selama Ward. 

“I’m sure she’s beautiful, and we will love her all the same,” he said honestly. “We’ve been waiting such a long time to meet her, after all.”

That was why Keira had forbidden visitors. It wasn’t only due to the prematurity of her birth, but the fear that the child would be rejected by the ren’dorei for not being touched by the Void in the womb. 

Nicanor looked relieved, and it struck Umbric then that perhaps _Keira_ hadn’t forbidden the baby visitors, but _the Wards_ had, and his heart went out to them. He placed a gentle hand on Nicanor’s shoulder and squeezed. 

“A child is a _blessing,”_ he said firmly, “and we are all overjoyed at this one. You will have to work very hard to keep her from being spoiled.”

Atynar snorted. “He’ll be the worst,” he teased. “You heard him blather about her hiccuping.”

“It’s cute!” Nicanor said defensively.

“Mmhmm.”

“It is!”

“Do you want to bring Shani this bowl or should I, you lovesick fool?”

“I want more apples in mine.”

“This one isn’t for you,” Atynar scolded. 

“I’m just saying.”

“That’s nice.” He spooned what looked like porridge into a ceramic bowl and held it out. “The mother of your child eats first.”

Umbric listened to them bicker and thought for a moment of offering to deliver the food himself, but ultimately decided against it. He wasn’t close to the Wards like Atynar was, was not a healer like Keira. He had no real reason to intrude on their privacy, and they were too polite to turn him away if he did. He thought it better to let them have this ﹣ this short, precious time as a new family, largely sequestered away from the world. Surely if he entered their home there would be questions ﹣ what news on the warfront, and has Shaw any new assignments for Nicanor, and was there any word on this person or another ﹣ and he wanted to spare them that, if only for a little while. He didn’t want the first words Selama Ward ever heard him speak to be about the sorry state of the world. 

For just a little while, he wanted them to forget themselves. He wanted them to enjoy the happiness he himself could not. Just for a minute. Just for now. 

  
  
  


Umbric lay in bed that night, once again unsleeping and his mind racing. Selama Ward would not grow up in the crimson city of Silvermoon. She would not experience the everlasting orange-gold spring, or look out her window and see a dragonhawk’s fluttery wings. Would not enjoy watching the tame bunnies hopping placidly through the meticulously maintained gardens lining the city streets, or marvel at the technomagical feat that was the arcane guardians in every square. Wouldn’t splash in the Bazaar fountain on warm days, tossing handfuls of sparkly coins to watch the ripples. And would not be able to turn her eyes skyward and take comfort in the gleaming pillar of light that was the Sunwell, the lifeblood of them all. 

And Umbric wanted that for her. For every elven child. No elf should be cut off from the Sunwell as the ren’dorei were. No elf should be barred from the majesty of Silvermoon. From their heritage and homeland. 

The Quel’Thalas Selama Ward would inherit would not be the same Quel’Thalas her parents had left. It couldn’t be, not after what Arthas Menethil had done to it. But she _would_ go back. Selama and all future ren’dorei children. All of them, the remains of the one hundred and fifty-two who’d been banished from Silvermoon would one day go back and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Umbric would take them there. 

The Void hummed pleasantly under his skin as he imagined looking out once again over a Silvermoon filled with children. Their smiling faces and loud, uncontrolled laughter. He saw Nicanor and Shani walk hand in hand with Selama down the Walk of Elders, the girl wriggling away to shove her face into a colorful flower and large, unbothered butterfly staring calmly back at her. Saw Selama learning magic within the scarlet walls of Silvermoon’s Royal Academy as Umbric himself had done, and countless other mages before them. Saw ren’dorei families and friends, whole and healed from the horrors they'd lived, just alive and _existing_ in the city again. 

Umbric would give that to them. Somehow, someway. No matter what opposed them, no matter who stood in their way, no matter what they had to do. Umbric would return to Silvermoon, and _nothing_ would distract him from that goal. 

With that he sat up. Untangled the red ribbon he’d been fiddling with and balled it up. Swung his legs over the side of the bed, and after a few determined steps, threw the ribbon in the trash. Without hesitating, he climbed back beneath his covers, pulling them tightly up to his chin. Shut his eyes. And forced himself to think only of Silvermoon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated and help Selama Ward grow big and strong!


End file.
